LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf.'._'!S.'t:. 

f-^Tc^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



C?fatl)'g C];ngli0l) Classics 



DE QUINCEY'S 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 



WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY 

GEORGE ARMSTRONG WAUCHOPE, M.A., Ph.D. 

Professor of English in the University of Iowa 




Soi>s^ e ^ V 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1897 






Copyright, 1897, 
By GEORGE ARMSTRONG WAUCHOPE. 



IZ~ 2/^Z'f 



TYrOGIlAl'llY BY J. S. CUSIIINO & Co., NORWOOD, MASS. 



MY FATHER 

A LIFELONG LOVER OF DE QUINCEY 

AND 

MY FIRST GUIDE IN LIFE AND LETTERS 



CONTENTS. 



Preface 

Introduction 

Critical Opinions .... 
Biographical and Critical References 
The P'light of a Tartar Tkibe 
Masson's Estimate 
From the " Atlantic Monthly " 
De Quincey's Authorities . 

Notes 

Chinese Accounts of the Migration 



IX 

xvii 

xix 

I 

73 
73 
74 
76 

85 



PREFACE. 



In the preparation of the present edition of De Ouincey's 
FligJit of a Tartar Tribe I have had in mind, from personal 
experience, the needs of teachers and students in secondary 
schools. 

In the introduction I have tried to give in suggestive form 
such biographical and critical material as will be needed by 
boys and girls in beginning the study of the author. 

The mind of the student should, first of all. be stimulated 
to a healthy enjoyment of the essay, and for this purpose the 
selection has peculiar merits. Witliout this appreciation the 
most important aim of literary study is defeated. 

The student''s interest having been gained, the essay should 
be made the means for training in the principles of criticism. 
The student should make his own analysis of the narrative, 
showing its artistic structure. He should then be led to 
discover the qualities of De Ouincey's marvellous style, and to 
use this knowledge as a basis of comparison with other prose 
writers. By this process his estimate of prose values will 
become more accurate. 

The notes have been made literary rather than philological, 
the object again being to arouse interest with its resulting 
investigation and further reading. I have determined to help 
the student over only real difficulties. 

De Ouincey is now one of our English classics, and there 



vi PREFACE. 

was great unanimit}' shown in selecting certain of bis master- 
pieces for high school study. There can be no question as 
to the propriety of introducing our great masters of prose in 
the course as early as possible, and the committee acted 
wisely in choosing for special study such notable stylists as 
Addison, Goldsmith, Irving, De Quincey, Hawthorne, Thack- 
eray, and George Eliot. To this list I should like to see 
added some of Ruskin's lectures, and prose selections from 
Poe, Steven.son, and Kipling. 

The wide-awake teacher will keep constantly in view the 
fact that the study of English, in addition to its intellectual 
value, is a powerful means of spiritual culture. If an author 
has not spoken to the soul of the student, stimulated his 
sympathies, and awakened his love of the good and beautiful, 
the teacher has to a great extent missed his opportunity, and 
failed in the highest purpose of education. The appeal to 
the reason is good ; the appeal to the feelings is belter. 
The object of training is not to make encyclopaedias, but 
character; not bookworms, but men of action and women of 
influence. 

DeOuincey is always inspiring. The richness of his style, 
his stately pageantry, the splendor of his imagery, his love of 
adventure, his broad sympathies, his dreamy romanticism, — 
all appeal powerfully to the noisiest intuitions of youth. 

In studying the essay, I would suggest that the student be 
asked, after the first rapid reading (in which he should give 
himself up to the simple enjoyment of the work), to prepare 
in his note-book an analysis, or table of contents. He 
should then read a second time, with a view to writing a 
theme or expressing an opinion on topics such as the follow- 
ing : Considered as a work of art, how does the essay appeal 
to the fancy and the emotions? How does the autlior ex- 



PREFACE. vii 

press character, with examples of heroism, cruelty, and the 
display of the virtues and vices in action? As an historical 
work, is it accurate, or has the author idealized and spiritual- 
ized the various scenes? Illustrate De Ouincey's distinction 
between '"the literature of knowledge" and "the literature of 
power/' Where does the author strike notes characteristic 
of all nineteenth century literature, such as mystery, ro- 
mance, sympathy, altruism, liberty, and love of nature? 
Where does he show his vast range of knowledge, especially 
in literature and history? What influence do you find of 
the Bible, Milton, Jeremy Taylor, and other English writers 
earlier and contemporary, also of foreign writers? Where 
does he show his fondness for psychological problems and 
his analytical bent of mind? What ethical teachings per- 
vade the entire essay? 

Other points of view will, of course, suggest themselves ; 
in fact, any field of literary art, when once opened up, will 
present an embarrassment of riches. After the study of a 
single essay in this way, the student will be well prepared to 
continue the study of De Ouincey in his autobiographical 
and philosophical works. 

G. A. W. 

lovvA CiTV, May 29, 1897. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The life of a man of letters is nearly always common- 
place. With the exception of a rich spiritual experience, 
his productive period is, in the nature of the case, apt to 
be uneventful. The literary craft is one not of action but 
of reflection. Occasionally we find exceptional men like 
Addison, Macaulay, Burke, and Lowell, who take ■ part in 
political life. Writers must, however, have a capital of 
thought and experience upon which to draw, and this they 
accumulate by study, observation, and intercourse with men. 

The career of De Quincey is unique in literature, both in 
its extraordinary incidents and in its vital relation to his 
writings. We owe, for example, his most famous work, 
the Confessions, much of his Autobiograp/iic Sketches, as well 
as his soubriquet of "The English Opium-Eater," to his 
terrible experience with the opium habit. His life may be 
divided roughly into two periods, taking the year 1821 as 
the central point. 

From 1785 to 1820 may be called his period of prepara- 
tion; from 1821 to 1859 that of his literary productiveness. 
As the student will wish to read the author's own account 
of his life, a narrative full of pathos, beauty, and romantic 
interest, a brief summary of the leading events will suffice here. 

Thomas De Quincey was born on August 15, 1785, near 
the city of Manchester, where his father, a wealthv and 



X INTRODUCTION. 

cultivated wine mercliant of Norman descent, resided. As 
a child lie was precocious, imaginati\'e, and given to dreamy 
introspection. The severe discipline of the masters of the 
grammar school which he attended, and the petty persecu- 
tions of the boys, proved so intolerable to his sensitive 
temperament that he ran away in 1802. 

After wandering for a short time through the mountains 
of Wales, he went down to London with little money and 
no definite plans except to see something of life. He spent 
his money, was unable to get work even as a proof-reader 
of Greek, of which he was a master, shared the company of 
beggars and outcasts, and endured almost incredible perils 
and hardships. '"'For I now sutTered," he says, ''for upwards 
of si.xteen weeks, the physical anguish of hunger in various 
degrees of intensity ; but as bitter, perhaps, as ever any 
human being can have suffered who has survived it." 

He was prevailed upon, the next year, to enter Oxford, 
and remained there on a small allowance until 1808. His 
university life was very unsatisfactory, as he neglected routine 
duties, refused to take the oral examinations, and became a 
recluse. He continued, however, his study of Greek, came 
under the influence of German philosophy, and, most im- 
portant of all, felt for the first time the exceeding power 
and beauty of our own literature. He left Oxford declaring, 
" I owe thee nothing! Of thy vast riches I took not a shil- 
ling, though living among multitudes who owed to thee 
their daily bread." 

De Quincey was meanwhile gradually acquiring the opium 
habit, which grew on him until the culmination in 18 13, 
when he was taking the appalling amount of eight thousand 
drops of laudanum or seven wineglassfuls a day. His Con- 
fessions appeared in The London Magazine for September, 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

1 82 1, producing a sensation in the world of letters and 
establishing the reputation of the author. 

The year 1808 is considered the most important in De 
Ouincey's formative period, not only on account of his opium 
eating but also for the acquaintanceships which he made, 
during pilgrimages to London and the Lakes, with Lamb, 
Coleridge, Hazlitt, Southey, Wordsworth, and Wilson. 

In 1809 he took the cottage formerly occupied by Words- 
worth, at Grasmere, in the beautiful Lake District. This 
was his home for twenty years, although from 1821 to 1825 
he spent most of his time in London. He married, in 1816, 

Margaret Simpson, the lovely M of the Confessions, who 

proved his guardian angel in his struggle with opium. For 
several years after this he seems to have been in easy finan- 
cial circumstances. 

De Ouincey's serious literary work began with his con- 
tributions to The London Magazine in 1821. Keats and 
a host of other famous writers had contributed to it, and 
Lamb was soon to publish in its columns his famous Essays 
of Elia. This was, in fact, pre-eminently the age of peri- 
odical literature with brilliant editors and slashing critics, 
and the influence of the great magazines on the national 
literature was powerful and on the whole salutary. Many 
an English masterpiece could hardly have seen the light 
had it not been for the helpful guineas and the open pages 
of the periodicals. 

De Ouincey is himself one of the best examples of the 
paid contributor to periodicals. " He has," writes Professor 
Masson, " taken his place in our literature as the author of 
about one hundred and fifty magazine articles." "The neces- 
sities of finishing for the press," says Mr. Brimley Johnson, 
"and satisfying magazine editors restrained the excess of 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

elaboration and ' wiredrawing ' to which he was naturally 
addicted." 

He spent the year 1830 at the home of Professor Wilson, 
the leading spirit of Blackivood^s Edinburgh Magazine. 
Their comradesliip was very beautiful, and pleasant is the 
account of the pedestrian tours of the little "Opium-Eater" 
and the majestic " Christopher North." De Ouincey finally, 
in 1843, removed with his daughters to Lasswade, a little vil- 
lage near Edinburgh, where he died August 8, 1859. 

De Quincey was slender in figure, with refined, clear-cut 
features and a noble, intellectual head. His constitution was 
feeble, yet he could endure a considerable amount of fatigue 
with loss of food and sleep. His face was pale and careworn ; 
his eyes sometimes lustreless, sometimes marvellously bright ; 
and his voice silvery, but so modulated as to sound hollow and 
unearthly. His manner was hurried and hesitating, his tem- 
perament a compound of shyness and sociability, prejudice 
and benevolence, humor and melancholy, irritability and 
sweet cheerfulness. 

Like Richardson, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Du Maurier, 
and others, De Ouincey entered the field of letters at a 
mature age, but splendidly equipped with ripe scholarship and 
knowledge of life. We have seen how he attained distinction 
at a single stride with his Confessions of an Opium-Eater, 
being an Extract from t/ie Life of a Scholar. From this time, ■ 
until his death, he continued to be a writer of articles on a 
vast range of subjects. The principal repositories of his es- 
says are : The London Magazine, 1821-24, Blackwood'' s Edin- 
burgh Magazifie, 1826-49, Taits Edinbjirgh Magazitie, 1834- 
51, and the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 1827-42. Besides these 
he has contributions in TJie North British Review, 1848, 
Knight's (Jnartcrly Magazine, 1823-24, ffogtfs Weekly In- 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

stn/ctor, 1850-54, and T/te EdinbiirgJi Literary Gazette, 
1829-30. 

The first collective edition of his works was published in 
twenty-two volumes by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of Boston, 
in 185 1, but Mr. James Hogg of Edinburgh brought out an 
edition in fourteen volumes edited by. the author, 1853-60. 
The authoritative collection of De Ouincey's works is that 
edited in fourteen volumes by Professor David Masson, and 
published by Messrs. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh. 

De Ouincey is probably the most versatile of all our prose 
writers. So encyclopaedic was his mind that his range of suId- 
jects was almost without limit. Dr. Johnson's famous epitaph 
on Goldsmith, the best all-round man of letters of his age, is 
equally true of De Ouincey: "He left almost no kind of writ- 
ing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn." 
Much of his time was spent unfortunately in mere honest 
journey-work to meet the demands of the periodicals and a 
depleted purse. This again makes his literary output very 
unequal in interest and merit, and was, no doubt, partly re- 
sponsible for his chief limitations, which were a too great fond- 
ness for digressions and labored trifling, and a frequent lack of 
unity and coherence in construction. 

Following Professor Masson's classification, his writings 
may be arranged under three groups as follows : 

r. Writings of Reminiscence. This includes his Aiito- 
biograp/ik Sketches and his Confessions ; biographic sketches, 
such as his Co/erido'e. Wordswort/t. and Soicthey. Shakespeare 
a.nd.Goet/ie ; and historical papers like The Caesars and 7'he 
Revolt of the Tartars. 

2. Speculative, Didactic, and Critical. Here may 
be mentioned such philosophical papers as Kant in his 
Miscellaneous Essays and Plato's Republic ; articles on 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

theology like Piotestantisin and Miracles as Subjects of 
Testii/iony ; political papers such as A Tory'^s Account of 
Toryism and W'liiggism and Radicalistn, and a book, the 
Logic of Political Economy ; also his essays on RJictoric and 
Style ; On the Knocking at tJie Gate in Macbeth, On II 'ords- 
'worth''s Poetry, and Alexander Pope. 

3. Imaginative Writings and Prose Poetry Under 
this may be mentioned his Micrder Considered as One of 
the Fine Arts, The Spanish Military JVnn, and Joan of 
Arc ; his romances KlosterJieim and TJie Avenger ; and 
such prose phantasies as The English Mail Coach and the 
Snspiria de Profundis. 

A complete list of tlie author's writings arranged in 
chronological order is given in Professor Scott's edition of 
the essays on Rlictoric-, Style, and Language. 

In point of style De Ouincey is a rhetorician. '' His merits 
were such," says Professor Saintsbury, "as to give him no 
superior in his own manner among the essayists, and hardly 
any among the prose writers of the century." He represents 
the reaction from the polish, reserve, and coldness of the 
eighteenth century to the warmth and glow of the seven- 
teenth century, — the golden period of English prose. His 
masters are Milton, Jeremy Taylor, Fuller, and Browne, 
whose eloquence, rich coloring, and elaborate ornamenta- 
tion he inherits. To these qualities he has added the finish 
and elegance of the eighteenth century writers, and the free- 
dom, deep feeling, and lofty spiritual tone of our own age. 

In fineness of texture and in beauty of coloring he is 
unequalled save by Ruskin, whom he surpasses in form and 
general pictorial and sound effects. He is rarely guilty of 
bad taste or bathos, and when at his best is a supreme 
master of tlic -grand style." With an imagination as great 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

as Carlyle's, his style is more chastened, rhythmical, and 
exquisite, though not showing so much moral earnestness 
or industry. He has a trner rhetorical and critical faculty 
than Rlacaulay, and is more stately and vivacious than 
Landor. 

De'Ouincey's unique power lies in his imagination, which 
is extraordinary. In his best passages there is a poetic 
loftiness, a phantasmagoric charm, and a spectacular gor- 
geousness which seizes and holds the mind of the reader 
with its subtile power. Even when we cannot accept the 
soundness of his conclusions on philosophical questions or 
the accuracy of his statements in the historical and bio- 
graphical essays, we delight in surrendering ourselves to 
his wonderful fancy. When he has on his magic robes, 
few can mount so high. 

He is the immortal dreamer of literature. Of course his 
work diiTers from such poetical phantasies as Coleridge's 
Kiibla KaJin by all the diiTerence between prose and poetry. 
But De Ouincey has created what may be called a prose poetry 
of his own which is unapproachable. It is winged, ethereal, 
mysterious, fiery, awful by turns, and defies analysis. We 
can only wonder at his divine faculty of expression, and the 
magic- transformation by sleep of the waking thoughts and 
sensations of this man 

" Dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." 

De Quincey was by temperainent artistic rather than didac- 
tic. In his ethical teachings, however, he is in perfect accord 
with all the great poets, essayists, and novelists of the century. 
He brings to every subject not only a highly trained critical 
faculty, but a broad humanitarianism. His sympathies are 
democratic. 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

Althoiigli lie counted many noblemen among his friends, 
he was not ashamed on occasion to associate with the lowly 
and outcast. He had, in fact, like Goldsmith, an instinct for 
an irregular or Bohemian life. He himself drank deeply of 
the cup of suffering, and contact with many phases of char- 
acter during an almost unexampled experience matured his 
judgment and broadened his sympathies. 

He everywhere teaches the great doctrine of charity or love, 
the brotherhood of man, sympathy with nature in all her 
forms, and the necessity of spiritual development for the 
happiness of the individual. Especially was his interest 
shown in the young, the noble, and the unfortunate. 

The quality of his humor is even more original than his 
pathos. In a peculiar weirdness and grotesqueness it has 
seldom been surpassed. It is by turns broad, subtle, quaint, 
and bizarre. '' Beneath this vigorous intellectuality," says 
Mr. Brimley Johnson, '"lurks a curiously deliberate and 'dae- 
monic ' kind of hiunor, wliich largely consists in the sudden 
introduction of an unexpected point of view, the use of digni- 
fied language for the discussion of trivialities, and the appli- 
cation of artistic or professional terms to records of crime 
and passion." 

De Quincey was one of our first critics in the modern sense. 
He was a co-worker with Lamb, Hazlitt, Southey, and Landor 
in the attempt to establish a school of literary criticism and to 
bring about a wider diffusion of culture. He had an emi- 
nently analytical mind. His power of thought, his vast learn- 
ing, and his genius for speculation make him an inspiring 
and brilliant, though sometimes prejudiced, critic. 



ADDITIONAL CRITICAL 
OPINIONS. 



My life has been on the whole the life of a philosopher; 
from my birth I was made an intellectual creature, and intel- 
lectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have 
been. 

THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 

Although his chief excellences may not be fully perceptible, 
except to mature tastes, he is especially attractive to the 
young. Probably more boys have in the last forty years been 
brought to a love of literature proper by De Quincey than by 
any other writer whatever. 

GEORGE SAINTSBURY. 

De Quincey, one of the Edinburgh School, is, owing to the 
overlapping and involved melody of his style, one of our best, 
as he is one of our most various miscellaneous writers. 

STOPFORD A. BROOKE. 

It is in virtue of this remarkable combination [of stateli- 
ness and vivacity], of his compass of style, ranging from the 
purely analytic to the humorous and sublime, and of his dis- 
tinction of literary manner, that he takes rank as the greatest 
prose artist in the language. 

WILLTAM RENTON. 



xviii CRITICAL OPINIONS. 

De Ouincey takes rank with Milton as one of our greatest 
masters of stately cadence, as well as of sublime composition. 
If one may trust one's ear for a general impression, Milton's 
melody is sweeter and more varied ; but for magnificent 
effects, at least in prose, the palm must probably be assigned 
to De Ouincey. In some of De Quincey's grandest passages 
the language can be compared only to the swell and crash of 
an orchestra. 

WILLIAM MINTO. 

His finest passages are distinguished by the crowded 
richness of fancy, the greater range and arbitrariness of 
combination, which are the peculiar attributes of poetry. 

R. BRLMLEY JOHNSON. 

To the appreciation of De Ouincey, the reader must bring 
an imaginative faculty somewhat akin to his own, a certain 
general culture, and large knowledge of books and men and 
things. Otherwise much of that slight and delicate allusion 
that gives point and color and charm to his writings will be 
missed ; and on this account the full enjoyment and com- 
prehension of De Quincey must always remain a luxury of 
the literary and intellectual. But his skill in narration, his 
rare pathos, his wide sympathies, the pomp of his dream 
descriptions, the exquisite playfulness of his lighter disserta- 
tions, and his abounding though delicate and subtle humor, 

commend him to a larger class. 

J. R. FINDLAY. 



A FEW REFERENCES IN BIOG- 
RAPHY AND CRITICISM. 



The best edition of the author's works is TJie Collected 
W^'iiings of Thomas De Qitiiicey, edited by David Masson, 
Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black. It is published in 
fourteen volumes with a good index. 

Dr. A. H. Japp\s [H. A. Page] Life of De Quincey is the 
best for biography. Masson's Life of De Qiiincey in English 
Men of Letters Series is very good for both biography and 
criticism. Articles on De Quincey will be found also by 
J. R. Findlay in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and by Leslie 
Stephen in the Dictionary of English Biography . An inter- 
esting monograph is Findlay's Per sonal Recollections of Thomas 
De Quincey. Many of the author's letters will be found in 
Japp's De Quincey ALemorials. More interesting than any of 
the above are De Ouincey's own Autobiographic Sketches, Lon- 
don Reminiscences, and the Confessions of an English Opium- 
Eater, the trio constituting a spiritual autobiography of in- 
estimable value and interest. 

The best short criticisms of his style and writings are found 
in Saintsbury's History of Nineteenth Century Literature, 
Chapter IV, p. 194, perhaps the most satisfactory critical 
estimate of De Quincey ; Stephen's Hours in a Library, 
first series, p. 349, reprint from Fortnightly, v. 15, p. 310; 
Craik's English Prose, v. 5, p. 259, article by R. Brimley 



XX BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 

Johnson ; Minto's Majiual of English Prose Literature, p. 31, 
an elaborate analysis of his style ; Nicoirs Landmarks of 
English Literature, p. 360 ; Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History 
of England, v. 1, p. 18; Hodgson's Outcast Essays, p. i ; 
Saintsbury's Essays in English Literature, p. 304; the intro- 
duction in William Sharp's edition of the Confessions in 
"The Scott Library"; William Mathews' Hours with Men 
and Books, pp. 1-49, containing some good things, but on the 
whole unreliable ; and Professor Fred N. Scott's introduction 
to his edition of the essays on Style, Rhetoric, and Language. 
The following magazine articles will be found of more or 
less merit: Harper''s,\ . i, p, 145, a reprint from the London 
Eclectic Review; also v. 2, pp. 156, 302; iVorth American 
Reviezv, v. 18, p. 90, by Willard Phillips ; v. 74, p. 425, by S. 
G. Brown ; v. 88, p. 113, by G. S. Phillips ; Atlantic Monthly, 
V. 12, p. 345, a delightful biographical sketch by Henry M. 
Alden ; v. 40, p. 569, a review by George Parsons Lathrop of 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.'s complete edition of De Quincey; 
Appleton's, v. 18, p. id6; Black7UOod's,\ . 122, p. 717; JVest- 
minster Review, v. 61, p. 519, by Henry Bright, very adverse 
and prejudiced; and the British Quarterly Review, v. 20, 
p. 163 ; V. 36, p. I ; and v. 66. p. 415. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS; 

OR, FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN AND HIS PEOPLE 

FROM THE RUSSIAN TERRITORIES TO THE 

FRONTIERS OF CHINA. 



There is no great event in modern history, or, perhaps 
it may be said more broadly, none in all history, from its 
earliest records, less generally known, or more striking to 
the imagination, than the flight eastwards of a principal 
Tartar nation across the boundless steppes of Asia in the 5 
latter half of the last century. The terminus a quo of this 
flight and the terminus ad quem are equally magnificent 
— the mightiest of Christian thrones being the one, the 
mightiest of pagan the other ; and the grandeur of these 
two terminal objects is harmoniously supported by the 10 
romantic circumstances of the flight. In the abruptness 
of its commencement and the fierce velocity of its execu- 
tion we read an expression of the wild, barbaric character 
of the agents. In the unity of purpose connecting this 
myriad of wills, and in the blind but unerring aim at a 15 
mark so remote, there is something which recalls to the 
mind those almighty instincts that propel the migrations 
of the swallow, or the life- withering marches of the locust. 
Then, again, in the gloomy vengeance of Russia and her 
vast artillery, which hung upon the rear and the skirts of 20 

B I 



2 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of Miltonic images 
— such, for instance, as that of the soUtary hand pursuing 
through desert spaces and through ancient chaos a rebel- 
Hous host, and overtaking with volleying thunders those 
5 who believed themselves already within the security of 
darkness and of distance. 

I shall have occasion, f^irther on, to compare this event 
with other great national catastrophes as to the magnitude 
of the suffering. But it may also challenge a comparison 

lo with similar events under another relation, — viz. as to its 
dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in romance 
or history, can sustain a close collation with this as to the 
complexity of its separate interests. The great outline 
of the enterprise, taken in connection with the operative 

15 motives, hidden or avowed, and the religious sanctions 
under which it was pursued, give to the case a triple 
character: ist, That of a conspiracy, with as close a 
unity in the incidents, and as much of a personal interest 
in the moving characters, with fine dramatic contrasts, as 

20 belongs to " Venice Preserved" or to the " Fiesco " of 
Schiller. 2dly, That of a great military expedition offer- 
ing the same romantic features of vast distances to be 
traversed, vast reverses to be sustained, untried routes, 
enemies obscurely ascertained, and hardships too vaguely 

25 prefigured, which mark the Egyptian expedition of Cam- 
byses — the anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and the sub- 
sequent retreat of the ten thousand, the Parthian ex- 
peditions of the Romans, especially those of Crassus and 
Julian — or (as more disastrous than any of them, and, in 

30 point of space, as well as in amount of forces, more ex- 
tensive) the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napoleon. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 3 

3(lly, That of a religious Exodus, authorized by an oracle 
venerated throughout many nations of Asia, — an Exodus, 
therefore, in so far resembling the great Scriptural Exodus 
of the Israelites, under Moses and Joshua, as well as in 
the very peculiar distinction of carrying along with them s 
their entire families, women, children, slaves, their herd 
of cattle and of sheep, their horses and their camels. 

This triple character of the enterprise naturally invests 
it with a more comprehensive interest ; but the dramatic 
interest which we ascribed to it, or its fitness for a stage 10 
representation, depends partly upon the marked variety 
and the strength of the personal agencies concerned, and 
partly upon the succession of scenical situations. Even 
the steppes, the camels, the tents, the snowy and the sandy 
deserts are not beyond the scale of our modern represen- 15 
tative powers, as often called into action in the theatres 
both of Paris and London ; and the series of situations 
unfolded, — beginning with the general conflagration on 
the Wolga — passing thence to the disastrous scenes of 
the flight (as it literally was in its commencement) — 20 
to the Tartar siege of the Russian fortress Koulagina — 
the bloody engagement with the Cossacks in the mountain 
passes at Ouchim — the surprisal by the Bashkirs and 
the advanced posts of the Russian army at Torgau — the 
private conspiracy at this point against the Khan — the 25 
long succession of running fights — the parting massacres 
at the Lake of Tengis under the eyes of the Chinese — 
arid, finally, the tragical retribution to Zebek-Dorchi at 
the hunting lodge of the Chinese Emperor ; — all these 
situations communicate a scenical animation to the wild 30 
romance, if treated dramatically ; whilst a higher and a 



4 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

philosophic interest belongs to it as a case of authentic 
history, commemorating a great revolution, for good and 
for evil, in the fortunes of a whole people — a people semi- 
barbarous, but simple-hearted, and of ancient descent. 

S On the 2ist of January, 1761, the young Prince Ouba- 
cha assumed the sceptre of the Kalmucks upon the death 
of his father. Some part of the power attached to this 
dignity he had already wielded since his fourteenth year, 
in quality of Vice-Khan, by the express appointment and 

10 with the avowed support of the Russian Government. ' He 
was now about eighteen years of age, amiable in his per- 
sonal character, and not without titles to respect in his 
public character as a sovereign prince. In times more 
peaceable, and amongst a people more entirely civilized 

IS or more humanized by religion, it is even probable that 
he might have discharged his high duties with consider- 
able distinction ; but his lot was thrown upon stormy 
times, and a most difficult crisis amongst tribes whose 
native ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms of super- 

20 stition, and by a nationality as well as an inflated conceit 
of their own merit absolutely unparalleled ; whilst the 
circumstances of their hard and trying position under the 
jealous surveillance of an irresistible lord paramount, in 
the person of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to the 

25 natural unamiableness of the Kalmuck disposition, and 
irritated its gloomier qualities into action under the rest- 
less impulses of suspicion and permanent distrust. No 
prince could hope for a cordial allegiance from his sub- 
jects or a peaceful reign under the circumstances of the 

30 case; for the dilemma in which a Kalmuck ruler stood 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 5 

at present was of this nature: ivaniing the support and 
sanction of the Czar, he was inevitably too weak from 
without to command confidence from his subjects or 
resistance to his competitors. On the other hand, with 
this kind of support, and deriving his title in any degree 5 
from the favor of the Imperial Court, he became almost 
in that extent an object of hatred at home and within the 
whole compass of his own territory. He was at once an 
object of hatred for the past, being a hving monument of 
national independence ignominiously surrendered ; and lo 
an object of jealousy for the future, as one who had 
already advertised himself to be a fitting tool for the 
ultimate purposes (whatsoever those might prove to be) 
of the Russian Court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck 
sceptre under the heaviest weight of prejudice from the 15 
unfortunate circumstances of his position, it might have 
been expected that Oubacha would have been pre-emi- 
nently an object of detestation ; for, besides his known de- 
pendence upon the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, the direct 
line of succession had been set aside, and the principle 20 
of inheritance violently suspended, in favor of his own 
father, so recently as nineteen years before the era of his 
own accession, consequently within the lively remem- 
brance of the existing generation. He, therefore, almost 
equally with his father, stood within the full current of the 25 
national prejudices, and might have anticipated the most 
pointed hostility. But it was not so : such are the ca- 
prices in human affairs that he was even, in a moderate 
sense, popular — a benefit which wore the more cheering 
aspect and the promises of permanence, inasmuch as he 3° 
owed it exclusively to his personal qualities of kindness 



6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

and affability, as well as to the beneficence of his govern- 
ment. On the other hand, to balance this unlooked-for 
prosperity at the outset of his reign, he met with a rival 
in popular favor — almost a competitor — in the person of 

5 Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with considerable pretensions to 
the throne, and, perhaps it might be said, with equal pre- 
tensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant of the 
same royal house as himself, through a different branch. 
On public grounds, his claim stood, perhaps, on a footing 

lo equally good with that of Oubacha, whilst his personal 
qualities, even in those aspects which seemed to a philo- 
sophical observer most odious and repulsive, promised the 
most effectual aid to the dark purposes of an intriguer 
or a conspirator, and were generally fitted to win a 

IS popular support precisely in those points where Oubacha 
was most defective. He was much superior in external 
appearance to his rival on the throne, and so far better 
qualified to win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous 
people ; whilst his dark intellectual qualities of Machiave- 

20 lian dissimulation, profound hypocrisy, and perfidy which 
knew no touch of remorse, were admirably calculated to 
sustain any ground which he might win from the simple- 
hearted people with whom he had to deal and from the 
frank carelessness of his unconscious competitor. 

25 At the very outset of his treacherous career, Zebek- 
Dorchi was sagacious enough to perceive that nothing 
could be gained by open declaration of hostility to the 
reigning prince : the choice had been a deliberate act 
on the part of Russia, and Elizabeth Petrovvna was not 

30 the person to recall her own favors with levity or ui)on 
slight grounds. Openly, therefore, to have declared his 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 7 

enmity toward his relative on the throne, could have had 
no effect but that of arming suspicions against his own 
ulterior purposes in a quarter where it was most essential 
to his interest that, for the present, all suspicions should 
be hoodwinked. Accordingly, after much meditation, s 
the course he took for opening his snares was this : — 
He raised a rumor that his own life' was in danger from 
the plots of several Saissang (that is, Kalmuck nobles), 
who were leagued together under an oath to assassinate 
him ; and immediately after, assuming a well-counter- 10 
feited alarm, he fled to Tcherkask, followed by sixty-five 
tents. From this place he kept up a correspondence 
with the Imperial Court, and, by way of soliciting his 
cause more effectually, he soon repaired in person to 
St. Petersburg. Once admitted to personal conferences 15 
with the cabinet, he found no difficulty in winning over 
the Russian councils to a concurrence with some of his 
political views, and thus covertly introducing the point 
of that wedge which was finally to accomplish his pur- 
poses. In particular, he persuaded the Russian Gov- 20 
ernment to make a very important alteration in the 
constitution of the Kalmuck State Council which in 
effect reorganized the whole political condition of the 
state and disturbed the balance of power as previously 
adjusted. Of this council — in the Kalmuck language 25 
called Sarga — there were eight members, called Sar- 
gatchi ; and hitherto it had been the custom that these 
eigiit members should be entirely subordinate to the 
Khan ; holding, in fact, the ministerial character of 
secretaries and assistants, but in no respect ranking as 30 
co-ordinate authorities. That had produced some incon- 



8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

veniences in former reigns ; and it was easy for Zebek- 
Dorchi to point the jealousy of the Russian Court to 
others more serious which might arise in future circum- 
stances of war or other contingencies. It was resolved, 

5 therefore, to place the Sargatchi henceforward on a foot- 
ing of perfect independence, and, therefore (as regarded 
responsibility), on a footing of equality with the Khan. 
Their independence, however, had respect only to their 
own sovereign ; for toward Russia they were placed 

lo in a new attitude of direct duty and accountability 
by the creation in their flivor of small pensions (300 
roubles a year), which, however, to a Kalmuck of that 
day were more considerable than might be supposed, 
and had a further value as marks of honorary distinction 

15 emanating from a great empress. Thus far the purposes 
of Zebek-Dorchi were served effectually for the moment : 
but, apparently, it was only for the moment ; since, in 
the further development of his plots, this very depend- 
ency upon Russian influence would be the most serious 

20 obstacle in his way. There was, however, another point 
carried, which outweighed all inferior considerations, as 
it gave him a power of setting aside discretionally what- 
soever should arise to disturb his plots : he was himself 
appointed President and Controller of the Sargatchi. 

25 The Russian Court had been aware of his high preten- 
sions by birth, and hoped by this promotion to satisfy 
the ambition which, in some degree, was acknowledged 
to be a reasonable passion for any man occupying his 
situation. 

30 Having thus completely blindfolded the Cabinet of 
Russia, Zebek-Dorchi proceeded in his new character to 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 9 

fulfil his political mission with the Khan of the Kalmucks. 
So artfully did he prepare the road for his favorable recep- 
tion at the court of this prince that he was at once and uni- 
versally welcomed as a public benefactor. The pensions 
of the councillors were so much additional wealth poured s 
into the Tartar exchequer ; as to the ties of dependency 
thus created, experience had not yet enlightened these 
simple tribes as to that result. And that he himself 
should be the chief of these mercenary councillors was so 
far from being charged upon Zebek as any ofience or any lo 
ground of suspicion, that his relative the Khan returned 
him hearty thanks for his services, under the belief that 
he could have accepted this appointment only with a view 
to keep out other and more unwelcome pretenders, who 
would not have had the same motives of consanguinit}' or 15 
friendship for executing its duties in a spirit of kindness 
to the Kalmucks. The first use which he made of his 
new functions about the Khan's person was to attack the 
Court of Russia, by a romantic villainy not easily to be 
credited, for those very acts of interference with the 20 
council which he himself had prompted. This was a 
dangerous step : but it was indispensable to his farther 
advance upon the gloomy path which he had traced out 
for himself. A triple vengeance was what he meditated : 
I, upon the Russian Cabinet, for having undervalued his 25 
own pretensions to the throne ; 2, upon his amiable rival, 
for having supplanted him ; and 3, upon all those of the 
nobility who had manifested their sense of his weakness 
by their neglect or their sense of his perfidious character 
by their suspicions. Here was a colossal outline of wick- 30 
edness ; and by one in his situation, feeble (as it might 



10 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

seem) for the accomplishment of its humblest parts, how 
was the total edifice to be reared in its comprehensive 
grandeur? He, a worm as he was, could he venture to 
assail the mighty behemoth of Muscovy, the potentate 
5 who counted three hundred languages around the foot- 
steps of his throne, and from whose "lion ramp" recoiled 
alike "baptized and infidel" — Christendom on the one 
side, strong by her intellect and her organization, and the 
"barbaric East" on the other, with her unnumbered 

lo numbers? The match was a monstrous one; but in its 
very monstrosity there lay this germ of encouragement — 
that it could not be suspected. The very hopelessness 
of the scheme grounded his hope ; and he resolved to 
execute a vengeance which should involve as it were, in 

15 the unity of a well-laid tragic fable, all whom he judged 
to be his enemies. That vengeance lay in detaching from 
the Russian empire the whole Kalmuck nation and break- 
ing up that system of intercourse which had thus far been 
beneficial to both. This last was a consideration which 

20 moved him but little. True it was that Russia to the 
Kalmucks had secured lands and extensive pasturage ; 
true it was that the Kalmucks reciprocally to Russia had 
furnished a powerful cavalry ; but the latter loss would be 
part of his triumph, and the former might be more than 

25 compensated in other climates, under other sovereigns. 
Here was a scheme which, in its final accomplishment, 
would avenge him bitterly on the Czarina, and in the 
course of its accomplishment might furnish him with 
ample occasions for removing his other enemies. It may 

30 be readily supposed, indeed, that he who could deliber- 
ately raise his eyes to the Russian autocrat as an antago- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. ii 

nist in single duel with himself was not likely to feel much 
anxiety about Kalmuck enemies of whatever rank. He 
took his resolution, therefore, sternly and irrevocably, to 
effect this astonishing translation of an ancient people 
across the pathless deserts of Central Asia, intersected 5 
continually by rapid rivers rarely furnished with bridges, 
and of which the fords were known only to those who 
might think it for their interest to conceal them, through 
many nations inhospitable or hostile : frost and snow 
around them (from the necessity of commencing their 10 
flight in winter), famine in their front, and the sabre, or 
even the artillery of an offended and mighty empress 
hanging upon their rear for thousands of miles. But what 
was to be their final mark — the port of shelter after so 
fearful a course of wandering ? Two things were evident : 15 
it must be some power at a great distance from Russia, 
so as to make return even in that view hopeless, and it 
must be a power of sufficient rank to insure them protec- 
tion from any hostile efforts on the part of the Czarina 
for reclaiming them or for chastising their revolt. Both 20 
conditions were united obviously in the person of Kien 
Long, the reigning Emperor of China, who was further 
recommended to them by his respect for the head of 
their religion. To China, therefore, and, as their first 
rendezvous, to the shadow of the great Chinese Wall, it 25 
was settled by Zebek that they should direct their flight. 
Next came the question of time — when should the 
flight commence ? and, finally, the more delicate question 
as to the choice of accomplices. To extend the knowl- 
edge of the conspiracy too far was to insure its betrayal 30 
to the Russian (jovernment. Yet, at some stage of the 



12 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

preparations, it was evident that a very extensive confi- 
dence must be made, because in no otlier way could tlie 
mass of the Kahnuck population be persuaded to furnish 
their families with the requisite equipments for so long a 
5 migration. This critical step, however, it was resolved 
to defer up to the latest possible moment, and, at all 
events, to make no general communication on the sub- 
ject until the time of departure should be definitely 
settled. In the meantime, Zebek admitted only three 

lo persons to his confidence ; of whom Oubacha, the reign- 
ing prince, was almost necessarily one ; but him, for his 
yielding and somewhat feeble character, he viewed rather 
in the light of a tool than as one of his active accom- 
plices. Those whom (if anybody) he admitted to an un- 

15 reserved participation in his counsels were two only : the 
great Lama among the Kalmucks, and his own father-in- 
law, Erempel, a ruling prince of some tribe in the neigh- 
borhood of the Caspian Sea, recommended to his favor 
not so much by any strength of talent corresponding to 

20 the occasion as by his blind devotion to himself and 
his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation of his 
daughter and his son-in-law to the throne of a sovereign 
prince. A titular prince Zebek already was : but this 
dignity, without the substantial accompaniment of a scep- 

25 tre, seemed but an empty sound to both of these ambi- 
tious rebels. The other accomplice, whose name was 
Loosang-Dchaltzan, and whose rank was that of Lama, 
or Kalmuck pontiff, was a person of far more distin- 
guished pretensions ; he had something of the same 

30 gloomy and terrific pride which marked the character of 
Zebek himself, manifesting also the same energy, accom- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 13 

panied by the same unfaltering cruelty, and a natural 
facility of dissimulation even more profound. It was by 
this man that the other question was settled as to the 
time for giving effect to their designs. His own pontifi- 
cal character had suggested to him that, in order to 5 
strengthen their influence with the vast mob of simple- 
minded men whom they were to lead into a howling 
wilderness, after persuading them to lay desolate their 
own ancient hearths, it was indispensable that they should 
be able, in cases of extremity, to plead the express sane- 10 
lion of God for their entire enterprise. This could only 
be done by addressing themselves to the great head 
of their religion, the Dalai-Lama of Tibet. Him they 
easily persuaded to countenance their schemes : and an 
oracle was delivered solemnly at Tibet, to the effect that 15 
no ultimate prosperity would attend this great Exodus 
unless it were pursued through the years of the tiger and 
the hare. Now the Kalmuck custom is to distinguish their 
years by attaching to each a denomination taken from one 
of twelve animals, the exact order of succession being 20 
absolutely fixed, so that the cycle revolves of course 
through a period of a dozen years. Consequently, if the 
approaching year of the tiger were suffered to escape 
them, in that case the expedition must be delayed for 
twelve years more ; within which period, even were no 25 
other unfavorable changes to arise, it was pretty well 
foreseen that the Russian Government would take most 
effectual means for bridling their vagrant propensities by 
a ring-fence of forts or military posts ; to say nothing of 
the still readier plan for securing their fidelity (a plan 30 
already talked of in all quarters) by exacting a large body 



14 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

of hostages selected from the famiUes of the most influen- 
tial nobles. On these cogent considerations, it was sol- 
emnly determined that this terrific experiment should be 
made in the next year of the tiger, which happened to 

5 fall upon the Christian year 1771. With respect to the 
month, there was, unhappily for the Kalmucks, even less 
latitude allowed to their choice than with respect to the 
year. It was absolutely necessary, or it was thought so, 
that the different divisions of the nation, which pastured 

10 their flocks on both banks of the Wolga, should have the 
means of effecting an instantaneous junction, because the 
danger of being intercepted by flying columns of the im- 
perial armies was precisely the greatest at the outset. 
Now, from the want of bridges or sufficient river craft for 

15 transporting so vast a body of men, the sole means which 
could be depended upon (especially where so many 
women, children, and camels were concerned) was ice ; 
and this, in a state of sufficient firmness, could not be 
absolutely counted upon before the month of January. 

20 Hence it happened that this astonishing Exodus of a 
whole nation, before so much as a whisper of the design 
had begun to circulate amongst those whom it most in- 
terested, before it was even suspected that any man's 
wishes pointed in that direction, had been definitely 

25 appointed for January of the year 1771. And almost 
up to the Christmas of 1770 the poor simple Kalmuck 
herdsmen and their families were going nightly to their 
peaceful beds without even dreaming that the fiat had 
already gone forth from their rulers which consigned 

30 those quiet abodes, together with the peace and comfort 
which reigned within them, to a withering desolation, 
now close at hand. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 15 

Meantime war raged on a great scale between Russia 
and the Sultan ; and, until the time arrived for throwing 
off their vassalage, it was necessary that Oubacha should 
contribute his usual contingent of martial aid. Nay, it 
had unfortunately become prudent that he should con- 5 
tribute much more than his usual- aid. Human expe- 
rience gives ample evidence that in some mysterious 
and unaccountable way no great design is ever agitated, 
no matter how few or how faithful may be the partici- 
pators, but that some presentiment — some dim mis- 10 
giving — is kindled amongst those whom it is chiefly 
important to blind. And, however it might have hap- 
pened, certain it is that already, when as yet no syllable 
of the conspiracy had been breathed to any man whose 
very existence was not staked upon its concealment, 15 
nevertheless some vague and uneasy jealousy had arisen 
in the Russian Cabinet as to the future schemes of the 
Kalmuck Khan : and very probable it is that, but for the 
war then raging, and the consequent prudence of con- 
ciliating a very important vassal, or, at least, of abstaining 20 
from what would powerfully alienate him, even at that 
moment such measures would have been adopted as 
must forever have intercepted the Kalmuck schemes. 
Slight as were the jealousies of the Imperial Court, they 
had not escaped the Machiavelian eyes of Zebek and the 25 
Lama. And under their guidance, Oubacha, bending to 
the circumstances of the moment, and meeting the jeal- 
ousy of the Russian Court with a poUcy corresponding to 
their own, strove by unusual zeal to efface the Czarina's 
unfavorable impressions. He enlarged the scale of his 30 
contributions, and that so prodigiously tliat he absolutely 



i6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

carried to headquarters a force of 35,000 cavalry, fully 
equipped : some go further, and rate the amount beyond 
40,000 ; but the smaller estimate is, at all events, ivithin 
the truth. 

S With this magnificent array of cavalry, heavy as well 
as light, the Khan went into the field under great expec- 
tations ; and these he more than realised. Having the 
good fortune to be concerned with so ill-organized and 
disorderly a description of force as that which at all 

10 times composed the bulk of a Turkish army, he carried 
victory along with his banners ; gained many partial suc- 
cesses ; and at last, in a pitched battle, overthrew the 
Turkish force opposed to him, with a loss of 5000 men 
left upon the field. 

15 These splendid achievements seemed likely to operate 
in various ways against the impending revolt. Oubacha 
had now a strong motive, in the martial glory acquired, 
for continuing his connection with the empire in whose 
service he had won it, and by whom only it could be 

20 fully appreciated. He was now a great marshal of a 
great empire, one of the Paladins around the imperial 
throne ; in China he would be nobody, or (worse than 
that) a mendicant alien, prostrate at the feet, and solicit- 
ing the precarious alms, of a prince with whom he had 

25 no connection. Besides, it might reasonably be expected 
that the Czarina, grateful for the really efficient aid given 
by the Tartar prince, v/ould confer upon him such emi- 
nent rewards as might be sufficient to anchor his hopes 
upon Russia, and to wean him from every possible sediic- 

30 tion. These were the obvious suggestions of prudence 
and s;ood sense to cverv man who stood neutral in the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 17 

case. But they were disappointed. The Czarina knew 
her obh'gations to the Khan, but she did not acknowl- 
edge them. Wherefore? That is a mystery perhaps 
never to be explained. So it was, however. The Khan 
went unhonored ; no ukase ever proclaimed his merits ; 5 
and, perhaps, had he even been abundantly recompensed 
by Russia, there were others who would have defeated 
these tendencies to reconciliation. Erempei, Zebek, and 
Loosang the Lama were pledged life-deep to prevent any 
accommodation; and their efforts were unfortunately 10 
seconded by those of their deadliest enemies. In the 
Russian Court there were at that time some great nobles 
preoccupied with feelings of hatred and blind malice 
toward the Kalmucks quite as strong as any which the 
Kalmucks could harbor toward Russia, and not, perhaps, 15 
so well founded. Just as much as the Kalmucks hated 
the Russian yoke, their galling assumption of authority, 
the marked air of disdain, as toward a nation of ugly, 
stupid, and filthy barbarians, which too generally marked 
the Russian bearing and language, but, above all, the 20 
insolent contempt, or even outrages, which the Russian 
governors or great military commandants tolerated in 
tlieir followers toward the barbarous religion and supersti- 
tious mummeries of the Kalmuck priesthood — precisely 
in that extent did the ferocity of the Russian resentment, 25 
and their wrath at seeing the trampled worm turn or 
attempt a feeble retaliation, react upon the unfortunate 
Kalmucks. At this crisis, it is probable that envy and 
wounded pride, upon witnessing the splendid victories of 
Oubacha and Momotbacha over the Turks and Bashkirs, 30 
contributed strength to tlie Russian irritation. And it 
c 



i8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

must have been through the intrigues of those nobles 
about her person who chiefly smarted under these feel- 
ings that the Czarina could ever have lent herself to the 
unwise and ungrateful policy pursued at this critical 
5 period toward the Kalmuck Khan. That Czarina was 
rto longer Elizabeth Petrowna ; it was Catharine II. — a 
princess who did not often err so injuriously (injuriously 
for herself as much as for others) in the measures of her 
government. She had soon ample reason for repenting 

lo of her false policy. Meantime, how much it must have 
co-operated with the other motives previously acting upon 
Oubacha in sustaining his determination to revolt, and 
how powerfully it must have assisted the efforts of all 
the Tartar chieftains in preparing the minds of their 

15 people to feel the necessity of this difficult enterprise, 
by arming their pride and their suspicions against the 
Russian Government, through the keenness of their sym- 
pathy with the wrongs of their insulted prince, may be 
readily imagined. It is a fact, and it has been confessed 

20 by candid Russians themselves when treating of this 
great dismemberment, that the conduct of the Russian 
Cabinet throughout the period of suspense, and during 
the crisis of hesitation in tlie Kalmuck Council, was 
exactly such as was most desirable for the purposes of 

25 the conspirators ; it was such, in fact, as to set the seal 
to all their machinations, by supplying distinct evidences 
and official vouchers for what could otherwise have been 
at the most matters of doubtful suspicion and indirect 
presumption. 

30 Nevertheless, in the face of all these arguments, and 
even allowing their weight so far as not at all to deny the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 19 

injustice or tlie impolicy of the imperial ministers, it is 
contended by many persons who have reviewed the affair 
with a command of all the documents bearing on the case, 
more especially the letters or minutes of council subse- 
quently discovered, in the handwriting of Zebek-Dorchi, 5 
and the important evidence of the Russian captive Wesel- 
off, who was carried off by the Kalmucks in their flight, 
that beyond all doubt Oubacha was powerless for any 
purpose of impeding or even of delaying the revolt. He 
himself, indeed, was under religious obligations of the 10 
most terrific solemnity never to flinch from the enterprise 
or even to slacken in his zeal : for Zebek-Dorchi, dis- 
trusting the firmness of his resolution under any unusual 
pressure of alarm or difficulty, had, in the very earliest 
stage of the conspiracy, availed himself of the Khan's 15 
well-known superstition, to engage him, by means of pre- 
vious concert with the priests and their head the Lama, 
in some dark and mysterious rites of consecration, termi- 
nating in oaths under such terrific sanctions as no Kal- 
muck would have courage to violate. As far, therefore, 20 
as regarded the personal share of the Khan in what was 
to come, Zebek was entirely at his ease ; he knew him to 
be so deeply pledged by religious terrors to the prosecu- 
tion of the conspiracy that no honors within the Cza- 
rina's gift could have possibly shaken his adhesion : and 25 
then, as to threats from the same quarter, he knew him 
to be sealed against those fears by others of a gloomier 
character, and better adapted to his peculiar tempera- 
ment. For Oubacha was a brave man, as respected all 
bodily enemies or the dangers of human warfare, but was 30 
as sensitive and timid as the most superstitious of old 



20 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

women in facing the frowns of a priest or under the 
vague anticipations of ghostly retributions. But had it 
been otherwise, and had there been any reason to appre- 
hend an unsteady demeanor on the part of this prince 
5 at the approach of the critical moment, such were the 
changes already effected in the state of their domestic 
politics amongst the Tartars by the undermining arts of 
Zebek-Dorchi, and his ally the Lama, that very little im- 
portance would have attached to that doubt. All power 

lo was not effectually lodged in the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. 
He was the true and absolute wielder of the Kalmuck 
sceptre ; all measures of importance were submitted to 
his discretion, and nothing was finally resolved but under 
his dictation. This result he had brought about, in a 

IS year or two, by means sufficiently simple : first of all, by 
availing himself of the prejudice in his favor, so largely 
diffused amongst the lowest of the Kalmucks, that his 
own title to the throne, in quality of great-grandson in a 
direct line from Ajouka, the most illustrious of all the 

20 Kalmuck Khans, stood upon a better basis than that of 
Oubacha, who derived from a collateral branch ; secondly, 
with respect to the sole advantage which Oubacha pos- 
sessed above himself in the ratification of his title, by 
improving this difference between their situations to the 

25 disadvantage of his competitor, as one who had not 
scrupled to accept that triumph from an alien power at 
the price of his independence, which he himself (as he 
would have it understood) disdained to court ; thirdly, 
by his own talents and address, coupled with the fero- 

3ocious energy of his moral character ; fourthly — and per- 
haps in an equal degree — by the criminal facility and 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 21 

good nature of Oubacha; finally (which is remarkable 
enough, as illustrating the character of the man), by that 
very new modelling of the Sarga, or Privy Council, which 
he had used as a principal topic of abuse and malicious 
insinuation against the Russian Government, whilst, in s 
reality, he first had suggested the alteration to the Em- 
press, and he chiefly appropriated the political advan- 
tages which it was fitted to yield. For, as he was himself 
appointed the chief of the Sargatchi, and as the pensions 
of the inferior Sargatchi passed through his hands, whilst 10 
in effect they owed their appointments to his nomination, 
it may be easily supposed that, whatever power existed in 
the state capable of controlling the Khan, being held by 
the Sarga under its new organization, and this body being 
completely under his influence, the final result was to 15 
throw all the functions of the state, whether nominally in 
the prince or in the council, substantially into the hands 
of this one man ; whilst, at the same time, from the 
strict league which he maintained with the Lama, all the 
thunders of the spiritual power were always ready to 20 
come in aid of the magistrate, or to supply his incapacity 
in cases which he could not reach. 

But the time was now rapidly approaching for the 
mighty experiment. The day was drawing near on which 
the signal was to be given for raising the standard of re- 25 
volt, and, by a combined movement on both sides of the 
Wolga, for spreading the smoke of one vast conflagration 
that should wrap in a common blaze their own huts and 
the stately cities of their enemies over the breadth and 
length of those great provinces in which their flocks were 30 
dispersed. The year of the tiger was now within one 



22 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

little month of its commencement ; the fifth morning of 
that year was fixed for the fatal day when the fortunes 
and happiness of a whole nation were to be put upon the 
hazard of a dicer's throw ; and as yet that nation was in 
5 profound ignorance of the whole plan. The Khan, such 
was the kindness of his nature, could not bring himself to 
make the revelation so urgently required. It was clear, 
however, that this could not be delayed ; and Zebek- 
Dorchi took the task willingly upon himself. But where 

lo or how should this notification be made, so as. to exclude 
Russian hearers? After some deliberation, the following 
plan was adopted : — Couriers, it was contrived, should 
arrive in furious haste, one upon the heels of another, re- 
porting a sudden inroad of the Kirghises and Bashkirs 

15 upon the Kalmuck lands, at a point distant about 1 20 
miles. Thither all the Kalmuck families, according to 
immemorial custom, were required to send a separate rep- 
resentative ; and there, accordingly, within three days, all 
appeared. The distance, the solitary ground appointed 

20 for the rendezvous, the rapidity of the march, all tended 
to make it almost certain that no Russian could be pres- 
ent. Zebek-Dorchi then came forward. He did not 
waste many words upon rhetoric. He unfurled an im- 
mense sheet of parchment, visible from the outermost 

25 distance at which any of this vast crowd could stand ; 
the total number amounted to 80,000 ; all saw, and many 
heard. They were told of the oppressions of Russia ; 
of her pvide and haughty disdain, evidenced toward 
them by a thousand acts ; of her contempt for their 

30 religion; of her determination to reduce them to abso- 
lute slavery ; of the ])reliminnry measures she had already 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 23 

taken by erecting forts upon many of the great rivers of 
their neighborhood ; of the ulterior intentions she thui 
announced to circumscribe their pastoral lands, until 
they would all be obhged to renounce their flocks, and to 
collect in towns like Sarepta, tliere to pursue mechanical 5 
and servile trades of shoemaker, tailor, and weaver, such 
as the free-born Tartar had always disdained. " Then, 
again," said the subtle prince, " she increases her military 
levies upon our population every year. We pour out our 
blood as young men in her defence, or, more often, in 10 
support of her insolent aggressions ; and, as old men, we 
reap nothing from our sufferings nor benefit by our surviv- 
orship where so many are sacrificed." At this point of 
his harangue Zebek produced several papers (forged, as 
it is generally believed, by himself and the Lama), con- 15 
taining projects of the Russian Court for a general trans- 
fer of the eldest sons, taken en masse from the greatest 
Kalmuck families, to the Imperial Court. " Now, let this 
be once accomplished," he argued, " and there is an end 
of all useful resistance from that day forwards. Petitions 20 
we might make, or even remonstrances ; as men of 
words, we might play a bold part ; but for deeds ; for 
that sort of language by which our ancestors were used to 
speak — holding us by such a chain, Russia would make 
a jest of our wishes, knowing full well that we should not 25 
dare to make any effectual movement." 

Having thus sufficiently roused the angry passions of 
his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this 
pretended scheme against their firstborn (an artifice 
which was indispensable to his purpose, because it met 30 
beforehand ez'e/y form of amendment to his proposal 



24 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

coming from the more moderate nobles, who would not 
otherwise have failed to insist upon trying the effect of 
bold addresses to the Empress before resorting to any 
desperate extremity), Zebek-Dorchi opened his scheme 
5 of revolt, and, if so, of instant revolt ; since any prepara- 
tions reported at St. Petersburg would be a signal for the 
armies of Russia to cross into such positions from all 
parts of Asia as would effectually intercept their march. 
It is remarkable, however, that with all his audacity and 

lo his reliance u])on the momentary excitement of the Kal- 
mucks, the subtle prince did not venture, at this stage of 
his seduction, to make so startling a proposal as that of 
a flight to China. All that he held out for the present 
was a rapid march to the Temba or some other great 

IS river, which they were to cross, and to take up a strong 
position on the farther bank, from which, as from a post 
of conscious security, they could hold a bolder language 
to the Czarina, and one which would have a better chance 
of winning a favorable audience. 

20 These things, in the irritated condition of the simple 
Tartars, passed by acclamation ; and all returned home- 
ward to push forward with the most furious speed the 
preparations for their awful undertaking. Rapid and 
energetic these of necessity were ; and in that degree 

25 they became noticeable and manifest to the Russians who 
happened to be intermingled with the different hordes, 
either on commercial errands, or as agents officially from 
the Russian Government, some in a financial, others in a 
diplomatic character. 

30 Among these last (indeed, at the head of them) was a 
Russian of some distinction, by name Kichinskoi — a man 



REV^OLT OF THE TARTARS. 25 

memorable for his vanity, and memorable also as one of the 
many victims to the Tartar revolution. This Kichinskoi 
had been sent by the Empress as her envoy to overlook 
the conduct of the Kalmucks. He was styled the Grand 
Pristaw, or Great Commissioner, and was universally ; 
known amongst the Tartar tribes by this title. Hi'^ 
mixed character of ambassador and of political siirveil- 
lant, combined with the dependent state of the Kal- 
mucks, gave him a real weight in the Tartar councils, and 
might have given him a far greater had not his outra- 10 
geous self-conceit and his arrogant confidence in his own 
authority, as due chiefly to his personal qualities for com- 
mand, led him into such harsh displays of power, and 
menaces so odious to the Tartar pride, as very soon 
made him an object of their profoundest malice. He had 15 
publicly insulted the Khan ; and, upon making a commu- 
nication to him to the effect that some reports began to 
circulate, and even to reach the Empress, of a design in 
agitation to fly from the imperial dominions, he had vent- 
ured to say, " But this you dare not attempt ; I laugh at 20 
such rumors ; yes. Khan, I laugh at them to the Empress ; 
for you are a chained bear, and that you know." The 
Khan turned away on his heel with marked disdain; and 
the Pristaw, foaming at the mouth, continued to utter, 
amongst those of the Khan's attendants who stayed be- 25 
hind to catch his real sentiments in a moment of un- 
guarded passion, all that the blindest frenzy of rage could 
suggest to the most presumptuous of fools. It was now 
ascertained that suspicion luid arisen ; but, at the same 
time, it was ascertained that the Pristaw spoke no more 30 
than the truth in representing himself to have discredited 



26 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

these suspicions. The fact was that the mere infatuation 
of vanity macie him beheve that nothing could go on un- 
detected by his all-piercing sagacity, and that no rebellion 
could prosper when rebuked by his commanding pres- 
5 ence. The Tartars, therefore, pursued their preparations, 
confiding in the obstinate blindness of the Grand Pristaw 
as in their perfect safeguard; and such it proved — to 
his own ruin as well as that of myriails beside. 

Christmas arrived ; and, a little before that time, 

lo courier upon courier came dropping in, one upon the 
very heels of another, to St. Petersburg, assuring the 
Czarina that beyond all doubt the Kalmucks were in 
the very crisis of departure. These dispatches came from 
the Governor of Astrachan, and copies were instantly 

15 forwarded to Kichinskoi. Now, it happened that be- 
tween this governor — a Russian named Beketofif — and 
the Pristaw had been an ancient feud. The very name 
of Beketoff inflamed his resentment; and no sooner did 
he see that hated name attached to the dispatch than he 

20 felt himself confirmed in his former views with tenfold 
bigotry, and wrote instantly, in terms of the most pointed 
ridicule, against the new alarmist, pledging his own head 
upon the visionariness of his alarms. Beketoff, however, 
was not to be put down by a few hard words, or by ridi- 

25 cule : he persisted in his statements ; the Russian minis- 
try were confounded by the obstinacy of the disputants ; 
and some were beginning even to treat the Governor of 
Astrachan as a bore, and as the dupe of his own nervous 
terrors, when the memorable day arrived, the fatal 5th of 

30 January, which forever terminated the dispute and put a 
seal upon the earthly hopes and fortunes of unnumbered 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 27 

myriads. The Governor of Astrachan was the first to 
hear the news. Stung by the mixed furies of jealousy, 
of triumphant vengeance, and of anxious ambition, he 
sprang into his sledge, and, at the rate of 300 miles a-day, 
pursued his route to St. Petersburg — rushed into the 5 
Imperial presence — announced the. total realization of 
his worst predictions ; and, upon the confirmation of this 
intelligence by subsequent dispatches from many different 
posts on the Wolga, he received an imperial commission 
to seize the person of his deluded enemy and to keep him 10 
in strict captivity. These orders were eagerly fulfilled ; 
and the unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards expired 
of grief and mortification m the gloomy solitude of a 
dungeon — a victim to his own immeasurable vanity and 
the blinding self-delusions of a presumption that refused 15 
all warning. 

The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faithful a 
prophet. Perhaps even he was surprised at the sudden- 
ness with which the verification followed his reports. 
Precisely on the 5th of January, the day so solemnly ap- 20 
pointed under religious sanctions by the Lama, the Kal- 
mucks on the east bank of the Wolga were seen at the 
earliest dawn of day assembling by troops and squadrons 
and in the tumultuous movement of some great morn- 
ing of battle. Tens of thousands continued moving off 25 
the ground at every half hour's interval. Women and 
children, to the amount of two hundred thousand and up- 
ward, were placed upon wagons or upon camels, and 
drew off by masses of twenty thousand at once — placed 
under suitable escorts, and continually swelled in numbers 30 
by other outlying bodies of the horde, who kept falling in 



28 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

at various distances upon the first and second day's 
march. From sixty to eighty thousand of those who 
were the best mounted stayed behind the rest of the 
tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder more 
5 violent than prudence justified or the amiable character 
of the Khan could be supposed to approve. But in this, 
as in other instances, he was completely overruled by the 
maUgnant counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. The first tempest 
of the desolating fury of the Tartars discharged itself 

10 upon their own habitations. But this, as cutting off all 
infirm looking backward from the hardships of their 
march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all 
the chieftains that even Oubacha himself was the first to 
authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch 

15 previously prepared with materials the most durable as 
well as combustible, and steadily api)lied it to the timbers 
of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general 
wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils 
and that part of the woodwork which could be applied 

20 to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This 
chapter in their memorable day's work being finished, 
and the whole of their villages throughout a district of 
ten thousand square miles in one simultaneous blaze, the 
Tartars waited for further orders. 

25 These, it was intended, should have taken a character 
of valedictory vengeance, and thus have left behind 
to the Czarina a dreadful commentary upon the main 
motives of their flight. It was the purpose of Zebek- 
Dorchi that all the Russian towns, churches, and build- 

3oings of every description should be given up to jnllage 
and destruction, and such treatment applied to the de- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 29 

fenceless inhabitants as might naturally be expected from 
a fierce people already infuriated by the spectacle of 
their own outrages, and by the bloody retaliations which 
they must necessarily have provoked. This part of the 
tragedy, however, was happily intercepted by a provi- 5 
dential disappointment at the very_ crisis of departure. 
It has been mentioned already that the motive for select- 
ing the depth of winter as the season of flight (which 
otherwise was obviously the very worst possible) had 
been the impossibiUty of effecting a junction sufficiently 10 
rapid with the tribes on the west of the Wolga, in the 
absence of bridges, unless by a natural bridge of ice. 
For this one advantage the Kalmuck leaders had con- 
sented to aggravate by a thousand fold the calamities 
inevitable to a rapid flight over boundless tracts of 15 
country with women, children, and herds of catde — for 
this one single advantage ; and ^et, after all, it was lost. 
The reason never has been explained satisfactorily, but 
the fact was such. Some have said that the signals 
were not properly concerted for marking the moment of 20 
absolute departure — that is, for signifying whether the 
settled intention of the Eastern Kalmucks might not 
have been suddenly interrupted by adverse intelligence. 
Others have supposed that the ice might not be equally 
strong on both sides of the river, and might even be 25 
generally insecure for the treading of heavy and heavily- 
laden animals such as camels. But the prevailing notion 
is that some accidental movements on the 3d and 4th 
of January of Russian troops in the neighborhood of the 
Western Kalmucks, though really having no reference to 30 
them or their plans, had been construed into certain 



30 REVOLT OP^ THE TARTARS. 

signs that all was discovered, and that the i)rudence of 
the Western chieftains, who, from situation, had never 
been exposed to those intrigues by which Zebek-Dorchi 
had practised upon the pride of the Eastern tribes, now 

5 stepped in to save their people from ruin. Be the cause 
what it might, it is certain that the Western Kalmucks 
were in some way prevented from forming the intended 
junction with their brethren of the opposite bank ; and 
the result was that at least one hundred thousand of these 

10 Tartars were left behind in Russia. This accident it was 
which saved their Russian neighbors universally from the 
desolation which else awaited them. One general mas- 
sacre and conflagration would assuredly have surprised 
them, to the utter extermination of their property, their 

15 houses, and themselves, had it not been for this disap- 
pointment. But the Eastern chieftains did not dare to 
put to Iiazard the safety 'of their brethren under the first 
impulse of the Czarina's vengeance for so dreadful a 
tragedy ; for, as they were well aware of too many cir- 

zocumstances by which she might discover the concurrence 
of the Western people in the general scheme of revolt, 
they justly feared that she would thence infer their con- 
currence also in the bloody events which marked its 
outset. 

25 Little did the Western Kalmucks guess what reasons 
they also had for gratitude on account of an interposition 
so unexpected, and which at the moment they so gen- 
erally deplored. Could they but have witnessed the 
thousandth part of the sufferings which overtook their 

30 Eastern brethren in the first month of their sad flight, 
they would have blessed Heaven for their own narrow 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 31 

escape ; and yet these sufferings of the first month were 
but a prelude or foretaste comparatively slight of those 
which afterward succeeded. 

For now began to unroll the most awful series of ca- 
lamities, and the most extensive, which is anywhere re- S 
corded to have visited the sons and daughters of men. 
It is possible that the sudden inroads of destroying na- 
tions, such as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol Tar- 
tars, may have inflicted misery as extensive ; but there 
the misery and the desolation would be sudden, like the 10 
flight of volleying hghtning. Those who were spared 
at first would generally be spared to the end ; those who 
perished would perish instantly. It is possible that the 
French retreat from Moscow may have made some 
nearer approach to this calamity in duration, though still 15 
a feeble and miniature approach ; for the French suffer- 
ings did not commence in good earnest until about one 
month from the time of leaving Moscow ; and though it 
is true that afterward the vials of wrath were emptied 
upon the devoted army for six or seven weeks in succes- 20 
sion, yet what is that to this Kalmuck tragedy, which 
lasted for more than as many months? But the main 
feature of horror, by which the Tartar march was distin- 
guished from the P'rench, lies in the accompaniment of 
women and children. There were both, it is true, with 25 
the French army, but so few as to bear no visible propor- 
tion to the total numbers concerned. The French, in 
short, were merely an army — a host of professional des- 
troyers, whose regular trade was bloodshed and whose 
regular element was danger and suffering. But the Tar- 30 
tars were a nation carrying along with them more than 



32 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

two hundred and fifty thousand women and children, 
utterly unequal, for the most part, to any contest with 
the calamities before them. The Children of Israel were 
in the same circumstances as to the accompaniment of 
5 their families ; but they were released from the pursuit 
of their enemies in a very early stage of their flight ; and 
their subsequent residence in the Desert was not a 
march, but a continued halt and under a continued 
interposition of Heaven for their comfortable support. 

10 Earthquakes, again, however comprehensive in their 
ravages, are shocks of a moment's duration. A much 
nearer approach made to the wide range and the long 
duration of the Kalmuck tragedy may have been in a 
pestilence such as that which visited Athens in the Pelo- 

is ponnesian war or London in the reign of Charles II. 
There, also, the martyrs were counted l)y m)'ria(is, and 
the period of the desolation was counted by months. 
But, after all, the total amount of destruction was on a 
smaller scale ; and there was this feature of alleviation 

2o to the conscious pressure of the calamity — that the 
misery was withdrawn from public notice into private 
chambers and hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by 
Vespasian and his son, taken in its entire circumstances, 
comes nearest of all — for breadth and depth of suffer- 

25 ing, for duration, for the exasperation of the suffering 
from without by internal feuds, and, finally, for that last 
most appalling expression of the furnace heat of the 
anguish in its power to extinguish the natural affections 
even of maternal love. But, after all, eacli case had cir- 

30 cumstances of romantic misery peculiar to itself — cir- 
cumstances without precedent, and, (wherever human 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 33 

nature is ennobled by Christianity,) it may be confi- 
dently hoped, never to be repeated. 

The first point to be reached, before any hope of re- 
pose could be encouraged, was the River Jaik. This 
was not above 300 miles from the main point of depart- S 
ure on the Wolga ; and, if the march thither was to be 
a forced one and a severe one, it was alleged, on the 
other hand, that the suffering would be the more brief 
and transient ; one summary exertion, not to be repeated, 
and all was achieved. Forced the march was, and 10 
severe beyond example : there the forewarning proved 
correct ; but the promised rest proved a mere phantom 
of the wilderness — a visionary rainbow, which fled 
before their hope-sick eyes, across these interminable soli- 
tudes, for seven months of hardship and calamity, with- 15 
out a pause. These sufferings, by their very nature and 
the circumstances under which they arose, were (like the 
scenery of the steppes) somewhat monotonous in their 
coloring and external features ; what variety, however, 
there was, will be most naturally exhibited by tracing 20 
historically the successive stages of the general misery 
exactly as it unfolded itself under the double agency of 
weakness still increasing from within and hostile press- 
ure from without. Viewed in this manner, under the 
real order of development, it is remarkable that these 25 
sufferings of the Tartars, though under the moulding 
hands of accident, arrange themselves almost with a 
scenical propriety. They seem combined as with the 
skill of an artist ; the intensity of the misery advancing 
regularly with the advances of the march, and the stages 3° 
of the calamity corresponding to the stages of the route ; 



34 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

so that, upon raising the curtain which veils the great 
catastrophe, we behold one vast climax of anguish, tower- 
ing upward by regular gradations as if constructed arti- 
ficially for picturesque effect — a result which might not 
S have been surprising had it been reasonable to anticipate 
the same rate of speed, and even an accelerated rate, as 
prevailing through the latter stages of the expedition. 
But it seemed, on the contrary, most reasonable to cal- 
culate upon a continual decrement in the rate of motion 

lo according to the increasing distance from the head- 
quarters of the pursuing enemy. This calculation, how- 
ever, was defeated by the extraordinary circumstance 
that the Russian armies did not begin to close in very 
fiercely upon the Kalmucks until after they had accom- 

15 plished a distance of full 2000 miles : 1000 miles farther 
on the assaults became even more tumultuous and mur- 
derous : and already the great shadows of the Chinese 
Wall were dimly descried, when the frenzy and acharne- 
ment of the pursuers and the bloody desperation of the 

20 miserable fugitives had reached its uttermost extremity. 
Let us briefly rehearse the main stages of the misery and 
trace the ascending steps of the tragedy, according to the 
great divisions of the route marked out by the central 
rivers of Asia. 

25 The first stage, we have already said, was from the 
Wolga to the Jaik ; the distance about 300 miles ; the 
time allowed seven days. For the first week, therefore, 
the rate of marching averaged about 43 English miles a 
day. The weather was cold, but bracing ; and, at a 

30 more moderate pace, this part of the journey might liave 
been accomplished without much distress by a people as 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 35 

hardy as the Kahnucks : as it was, the cattle suffered 
greatly from overdriving ; milk began to fail even for the 
children; the sheep perished by wholesale; and the 
children themselves were saved only by the innumerable 
camels. 5 

The Cossacks who dwelt upon the banks of the Jaik 
were the first among the subjects of Russia to come into 
collision with the Kalmucks. Great was their surprise at 
the suddenness of the irruption, and great also their con- 
sternation ; for, according to their settled custom, by far 10 
the greater part of their number was absent during the 
winter months at the fisheries upon the Caspian. Some 
who were liable to surprise at the most exposed points 
fled in crowds to the fortress of Koulagina, which was 
immediately invested and summoned by Oubacha. He 15 
had, however, in his train only a few light pieces of 
artillery ; and the Russian commandant at Koulagina, 
being aware of the hurried circumstances in which the 
Khan was placed, and that he stood upon the very edge, 
as it were, of a renewed flight, felt encouraged by these 20 
considerations to a more obstinate resistance than might 
else have been advisable with an enemy so little disposed 
to observe the usages of civilized warfare. The period 
of his anxiety was not long. On the fifth day of the 
siege he descried from the walls a succession of Tartar 25 
couriers, mounted upon fleet Bactrian camels, crossing 
the vast plains around the fortress at a furious pace and 
riding in-to the Kalmuck encampment at various points. 
Great agitation appeared immediately to follow : orders 
were soon after dispatched in all directions ; and it be- 30 
came speedily known that upon a distant flank of the 



36 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Kalmuck movement a bloody and exterminating battle 
had been fought the day before, in which one entire tribe 
of the Khan's dependents, numbering not less than 9000 
fighting men, had perished to the last man. This was the 

5 ouloss, or clan, called Feka-Zechorr, between whom and 
the Cossacks there was a feud of ancient standing. In 
selecting, therefore, the points of attack, on occasion of 
the present hasty inroad, the Cossack chiefs were natu- 
rally eager so to direct their efforts as to combine with 

10 the service of the Empress some gratification to their 
own party hatreds, more especially as the present was 
likely to be their final opportunity for revenge if the 
Kalmuck evasion should prosper. Having, therefore, 
concentrated as large a body of Cossack cavalry as cir- 

15 cumstances allowed, they attacked the hostile ouloss with 
a precipitation which denied to it all means for communi- 
cating with Oubacha ; for the necessity of commanding 
an ample range of pasturage, to meet the necessities of 
their vast flocks and herds, had separated this ouloss from 

20 the Khan's headquarters by an interval of 80 miles ; and 
thus it was, and not from oversight, that it came to be 
thrown entirely upon its own resources. These had 
proved insufficient : retreat, from the exhausted state of 
their horses and camels, no less than from the prodigious 

25 encumbrances of their live stock, was absolutely out of 
the question : quarter was disdained on the one side, 
and would not have been granted on the other : and 
thus it had happened that the setting sun of that one day 
(the tliirteenth from the first opening of the revolt) 

30 threw his parting rays upon the final agonies of an 
ancient ouloss, stretched upon a bloody field, who on 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 2>7 

that day's dawning had held and styled themselves an 
independent nation. 

Universal consternation was diffused through the wide 
borders of the Khan's encampment by this disastrous 
intelligence, not so much on account of the numbers 5 
slain, or the total extinction of a .powerful all}^ as be- 
cause the position of the Cossack force was likely to put 
to hazard the future advances of the Kalmucks, or at 
least to retard and hold them in check until the heavier 
columns of the Russian army should arrive upon their 10 
flanks. The siege of Koulagina was instantly raised ; 
and that signal, so fatal to the happiness of the women 
and their children, once again resounded through the 
tents — the signal for flight, and this time for a flight 
more rapid than ever. About 150 miles ahead of their 15 
present position, there arose a tract of hilly country, 
forming a sort of margin to the vast, sealike expanse of 
champaign savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy 
deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin 
both eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 20 
centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through 
which passed the nearest and the most practicable route 
to the River Torgau (the farther bank of which river 
offered the next great station of security for a general 
halt). It was the more essential to gain this pass before 25 
the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only would the delay in 
forcing the pass give time to the Russian pursuing 
columns for combining their attacks and for bringing 
up their artillery, but also because (even if all enemies in 
pursuit were thrown out of the question) it was held, by 30 
those best acquainted with the difficult and obscure geog- 



38 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

raphy of these pathless steppes — that the loss of this one 
narrow strait amongst the hills would have the effect of 
throwing them (as their only alternative in a case where 
so wide a sweep of pasturage was required) upon a circuit 
5 of at least 500 miles extra ; besides that, after all, this cir- 
cuitous route would carry them to the Torgau at a point 
unfitted for the passage of their heavy baggage. The 
defile in the hills, therefore, it was resolved to gain ; and 
yet, unless they moved upon it with the velocity of light 

10 cavalry, there was little chance but it would be found 
preoccupied by the Cossacks. They, it is true, had 
suffered greatly in the recent sanguinary action with the 
defeated oiiloss ; but the excitement of victory, and the 
intense sympathy with their unexampled triumph, had 

15 again swelled their ranks, and would probably act with 
the force of a vortex to draw in their simple country- 
men from the Caspian. The question, therefore, of pre- 
occupation was reduced to a race. The Cossacks were 
marching upon an oblique line not above 50 miles longer 

20 than that which led to the same point from the Kalmuck 
headquarters before Koulagina ; and therefore, without 
the most furious haste on the part of the Kalmiicks, there 
was not a chance for them, burdened and " trashed " as 
they were, to anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the 

25 Cossacks in seizing this important pass. 

Dreadful were the feelings of the poor women on hear- 
ing this exposition of the case. For they easily under- 
stood that too capital an interest (the summa renting 
was now at stake to allow of any regard to minor inter- 

30 ests, or what would be considered such in their present 
circumstances. The dreadful week already passed — 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 39 

their inauguration in misery — was yet fresh in their re- 
membrance. The scars of suffering were impressed not 
only upon their memories, but upon their very persons 
and the persons of their children ; and they knew that, 
where no speed had much chance of meeting the cravings 5 
of the chieftains, no test would be accepted, short of ab- 
solute exhaustion, that as much had been accomplished 
as could be accomplished. Weseloff, the Russian captive, 
has recorded the silent wretchedness with which the 
women and elder boys assisted in drawing the tent ropes. 10 
On the sth of January all had been animation and the 
joyousness of indefinite expectation ; now, on the con- 
trary, a brief but bitter experience had taught them to 
take an amended calculation of what it was that lay 
before them. 15 

One whole day and far into the succeeding night had 
the renewed flight continued ; the sufferings had been 
greater than before, for the cold had been more intense, 
and many perished out of the living creatures through 
every class except only the camels — whose powers of 20 
endurance seemed equally adapted to cold and heat. 
The second morning, however, brought an alleviation to 
the distress. Snow had begun to fall ; and, though not 
deep at present, it was easily foreseen that it soon would 
be so, and that, as a halt would in that case become un- 25 
avoidable, no plan could be better than that of staying 
where they were, especially as the same cause would 
check the advance of the Cossacks. Here, then, was the 
last interval of comfort which gleamed upon the unhappy 
nation during their whole migration. For ten days the 30 
snow continued to fall with little intermission. At the 



40 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

end of tliat time, keen, bright, frosty weather succeeded ; 
the drifting had ceased. In three days the smooth ex- 
panse became firm enough to support the treading of the 
camels ; and the flight was recommenced. But during 
5 the halt much domestic comfort had been enjoyed ; and, 
for the last time, universal plenty. I'he cows and oxen 
had perished in such vast numbers on the previous 
marches that an order was now issued to turn what 
remained to account by slaughtering the whole, and 

lo saUing whatever part should be found to exceed the im- 
mediate consumption. This measure led to a scene of 
general banqueting, and even of festivity, amongst all 
who were not incapacitated for joyous emotions by dis- 
tress of mind, by grief for the unhappy experience of the 

15 few last days, and by anxiety for the too gloomy future. 
Seventy thousand persons of all ages had already perished, 
exclusively of the many thousand allies who had been cut 
down by the Cossack sabre. And the losses in reversion 
were likely to be many more. For rumors began now 

20 to arrive from all quarters, by the mounted couriers whom 
the Khan had dispatched to the rear and to each flank 
as well as in advance, that large masses of the imperial 
troops were converging from all parts of Central Asia to 
the fords of the River Torgau, as the most convenient 

25 point for intercepting the flying tribes ; and it was al- 
ready well known that a powerful division was close in 
their rear, and was retarded only by the numerous artillery 
which had been judged necessary to support their opera- 
tions. New motives were thus daily arising for quickening 

30 the motions of the wretched Kalmucks, and for exhaust- 
ing those who were previously but too much exhausted. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 41 

It was not until the 2d day of February that the 
Khan's advanced guard came in sight of Ouchim, the 
defile among the hills of Moulgaldchares, in which they 
anticipated so bloody an opposition from the Cossacks. 
A pretty large body of these light cavalry had, in fact, S 
preoccupied the pass by some hours ; but the Khan 
having two great advantages — namely, a strong body of 
infantry, who had been conveyed by sections of five on 
about two hundred camels, and some pieces of light 
artillery which he had not yet been forced to abandon — ^° 
soon began to make a serious impression upon this un- 
supported detachment ; and they would probably at any 
rate have retired ; but, at the very moment when they 
were making some dispositions in that view, Zebek- 
Dorchi appeared upon their rear with a body of trained 15 
riflemen, who had distinguished themselves in the war 
with Turkey. These men had contrived to crawl un- 
observed over the cliffs which skirted the ravine, avaiUng 
themselves of the dry beds of the summer torrents and 
other inequalities of the ground to conceal their move- 20 
ment. Disorder and trepidation ensued instantly in the 
Cossack files ; the Khan, who had been waiting with the 
<?///<? of his heavy cavalry, charged furiously upon them. 
Total overthrow followed to the Cossacks, and a slaughter 
such as in some measure avenged the recent bloody ex- 25 
termination of their allies, the ancient oiiloss of Feka- 
Zechorr. The slight horses of the Cossacks were unable 
td support the weight of heavy Polish dragoons and a 
body of trained cameleers (that is, cuirassiers mounted 
on camels) ; hardy they were, but not strong, nor a 3° 
rnatch for their antagonists in weight ; and their ex- 



42 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

traordinary efforts through the last few days to gain their 
present position had greatly diminished their powers for 
effecting an escape. Very few, in fact, did escape ; and 
the bloody day of Ouchim became as memorable among 
S the Cossacks as that which, about twenty days before, 
had signalized the complete annihilation of the Feka- 
Zechorr. 

The road was now open to the River Igritch, and as 
yet even far beyond it to the Torgau ; but how long 

10 this state of things would condnue was every day more 
doubtful. Certain intelligence was now received that a 
large Russian army, well appointed in every arm, was 
advancing upon the Torgau under the command of 
General Traubenberg. This officer was to be joined on 

15 his route by ten thousand Bashkirs, and pretty nearly the 
same amount of Kirghises — both hereditary enemies of 
the Kalmucks — both exasperated to a point of madness 
by the bloody trophies which Oubacha and Momotbacha 
had, in late years, won from such of their compatriots as 

20 served under the Sultan. The Czarina's yoke these wild 
nations bore with submissive patience, but not the hands 
by which it had been imposed ; and accordingly, catch- 
ing with eagerness at the present occasion offered to 
their vengeance, they sent an assurance to the Czarina 

25 of their perfect obedience to her commands, and at the 
same time a message significantly declaring in what spirit 
they meant to execute them — viz. " that they would not 
trouble lier Majesty with prisoners." 

Here then arose, as before with the Cossacks, a race 

30 for the Kalmucks with the regular armies of Russia, and 
concurrently with nations as fierce and semi-humanized 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 43 

as themselves, besides that they were stung into threefold 
activity by the furies of mortified pride and military 
abasement, under the eyes of the Turkish Sultan. The 
forces, and more especially the artillery, of Russia, were 
far too overwhelming to permit the thought of a regular 5 
opposition in pitched battles, even with a less dilapidated 
state of their resources than they could reasonably expect 
at the period of their arrival on the Torgau. In their 
speed lay their only hope — in strength of foot, as before, 
and not in strength of arm. Onward, therefore, the Kal- lo 
mucks pressed, marking the lines of their wide-extending 
march over the sad solitudes of the steppes by a never- 
ending chain of corpses. The old and the young, the 
sick man on his couch, the mother with her baby — all 
were left behind. Sights such as these, with the many 15 
rueful aggravations incident to the helpless condition of 
infancy — of disease and of female weakness abandoned 
to the wolves amidst a howling wilderness — continued to 
track their course through a space of full two thousand 
miles ; for so much at the least it was hkely to prove, 20 
including the circuits to which they were often com- 
pelled by rivers or hostile tribes, from the point of start- 
ing on the Wolga until they could reach their destined 
halting ground on the east bank of the Torgau. For the 
first seven weeks of this march their sufferings had been 25 
imbittered by the excessive severity of the cold ; and 
every night — so long as wood was to be had for fires, 
either from the lading of the camels, or from the desper- 
ate sacrifice of their baggage wagons, or (as occasionally 
happened) from the forests which skirted the banks of 30 
the many rivers which crossed their path — no spectacle 



44 REV^OLT OF THE TARTARS. 

was more frequent than that of a circle, composed of 
men, women, and children, gathered by hundreds round 
a central fire, all dead and stiff at the return of morning 
light. Myriads were left behind from pure exhaustion, 
5 of whom none had a chance, under the combined evils 
which beset them, of surviving through the next twenty- 
four hours. Frost, however, and snow at length ceased 
to persecute ; the vast extent of the march at length 
brought them into more genial latitudes, and the unusual 

lo duration of the march was gradually bringing them into 
more genial seasons of the year. Two thousand miles 
had at least been traversed ; February, March, April, were 
gone ; the balmy month of May had opened ; vernal 
sights and sounds came from every side to comfort the 

15 heart-weary travellers ; and at last, in the latter end of 
May, crossing the Torgau, they took up a position where 
they hoped to find liberty to repose themselves for many 
weeks in comfort as well as in security, and to draw such 
supplies from the fertile neighborhood as might restore 

20 their shattered forces to a condition for executing, with 
less of wreck and ruin, the large remainder of the 
journey. 

Yes ; it was true that two thousand miles of wandering 
had been completed, but in a period of nearly five 

25 months, and with the terrific sacrifice of at least two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and 
flocks past all reckoning. These had all perished : ox, 
cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat, not one survived — 
only the camels. These arid and adust creatures, look- 

30 ing like the mummies of some antediluvian animals, with- 
out the affections or sensibilities of flesh and blood — ■ 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 45 

these only still erected their speaking eyes to the eastern 
heavens, and had to all appearance come out from this 
long tempest of trial unscathed and hardly diminished. 
The Khan, knowing how much he was individually an- 
swerable for the misery which had been sustained, must 5 
have wept tears even more bitter than those of Xerxes 
when he threw his eyes over the myriads whom he had 
assembled : for the tears of Xerxes were unmingled with 
compunction. Whatever amends were in his power the 
Khan resolved to make, by sacrifices to the general good 10 
of all personal regards ; and, accordingly, even at this 
point of their advance, he once more deliberately brought 
under review the whole question of the revolt. The 
question was formally debated before the Council, 
whether, even at this point, they should untread their 15 
steps, and, throwing themselves upon the Czarina's 
mercy, return to their old allegiance. In that case, 
Oubacha professed himself wilhng to become the scape- 
goat for the general transgression. This, he argued, was 
no fantastic scheme, but even easy of accomphshment ; 20 
for the unlimited and sacred power of the Khan, so well 
known to the Empress, made it absolutely iniquitous to 
attribute any separate responsibility to the people. Upon 
the Khan rested the guilt — upon the Khan would des- 
scend the imperial vengeance. This proposal was ap- 25 
plauded for its generosity, but was energetically opposed 
by Zebek-Dorchi. Were they to lose the whole journey 
of two thousand miles ? Was their misery to perish with- 
out fruit? True it was that they had yet reached only 
the half-way house; but, in that respect, the motives 30 
were evenly balanced for retreat or for advance. Either 



46 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

way they would have pretty nearly the same distance to 
traverse, but with this difference — that, forwards, their 
route lay through lands comparatively fertile ; backwarils, 
through a blasted wilderness, rich only in memorials of 
5 their sorrow, and hideous to Kalmuck eyes by the tro- 
phies of their calamity. Besides, though the Empress 
might accept an excuse for the past, would she the less 
forbear to suspect for the future? The Czarina's /rt:r^<;';/ 
they might obtain, but could they ever hope to recover 

lo her confiilence ? Doubtless there would now be a stand- 
ing presumption against them, an immortal ground of 
jealousy; and a jealous government would be but an- 
other name for a harsh one. Finally, whatever motives 
there ever had been for the revolt surely remained unim- 

15 paired by anything that had occurred. In reality, the 
revolt was, after all, no revolt, but (strictly speaking) a 
return to their old allegiance ; since, not above one 
hundred and fifty years ago (viz., in the year 16 16), 
their ancestors had revolted from the Emperor of China. 

20 They had now tried both governments; and for them 
China was the land of promise, and Russia the house of 
bondage. 

Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say or do, the 
yearning of the people was strongly in behalf of the 

25 Khan's proposal; the pardon of their prince, they per- 
suaded themselves, would be readily conceded by the 
Empress : and there is little doubt that they would at 
this time have thrown themselves gladly upon the im- 
perial mercy ; when suddenly all was defeated by the 

30 arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg. This general 
had reached the fortress of Orsk, after a very painful 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 47 

march, on the 12th of April ; thence he set forward tow- 
ard Oriembourg, which he reached upon the ist of 
June, having been joined on his route at various times 
through the month of May by the Kirghises and a corps 
of ten thousand Bashlcirs. From Oriembourg he sent S 
forward his official offers to the Khan, which were harsh 
and peremptory, holding out no specific stipulations as 
to pardon or impunity, an exacting unconditional sub- 
mission as the preliminary price of any cessation from 
military operations. The personal character of Trauben- 10 
berg, which was anything but energetic, and the con- 
dition of his army, disorganized in a great measure by the 
length and severity of the march, made it probable that, 
with a little time for negotiation, a more conciliatory 
tone would have been assumed. But, vmhappily for all 15 
parties, sinister events occurred in the meantime such as 
effectually put an end to every hope of the kind. 

The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg had re- 
ported to this officer that a distance of only ten days' 
march lay between his own headquarters and those of 20 
the Khan. Upon this fact transpiring, the Kirghises, by 
their prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, entreated the 
Russian general to advance without delay. Once having 
placed his cannon in position, so as to command the 
Kalmuck camp, the fate of the rebel Khan and his 25 
people would be in his own hands, and they would 
themselves form his advanced guard. Traubenberg, how- 
ever {7vhy has not been certainly explained), refused to 
march ; grounding his refusal upon the condition of his 
army and their absolute need of refreshment. Long 30 
and fierce was the altercation ; but at length, seeing no 



48 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

chance of prevailing, and dreading above all other events 
the escape of their detested enemy, the ferocious Bash- 
kirs went off in a body by forced marches. In six days 
they reached the Torgau, crossed by swimming their 
5 horses, and fell upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed 
for many a league in search of food or provender for 
their camels. The first day's action was one vast suc- 
cession of independent skirmishes, diffused over a field 
of thirty to forty miles in extent ; one party often break- 

lo ing up into three or four, and again (according to the 
accidents of ground) three or four blending into one ; 
flight and pursuit, rescue and total overthrow, going on 
simultaneously, under all varieties of form, in all quarters 
of the plain. The Bashkirs had found themselves obliged, 

15 by the scattered state of the Kalmucks, to split up into 
innumerable sections ; and thus, for some hours, it had 
been impossible for the most practised eye to collect the 
general tendency of the day's fortune. Both the Khan 
and Zebek-Dorchi were at one moment made prisoners, 

20 and more than once in imminent danger of being cut 
down ; but at length Zebek succeeded in rallying a 
strong column of infantry, which, with the support of the 
camel corps on each flank, compelled the Bashkirs to re- 
treat. Clouds, however, of these wild cavalry continued 

25 to arrive through the next two days and nights, followed 
or accompanied by the Kirghises. These being viewed 
as the advanced parties of Traubenberg's army, the Kal- 
muck chieftains saw no hope of safety but in flight ; and 
in this way it happened that a retreat, which had so 

30 recently been brought to a pause, was resumed at the 
very moment when the unhappy fugitives were anticipat- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTyVRS. 49 

ing a deep repose, without further molestation, the whole 
summer through. 

It seemed as though every variety of wretchedness 
were predestined to the Kalmucks, and as if their suffer- 
ings were incomplete unless they were rounded and ma- 5 
tured by all that the most dreadful, agencies of summer's 
heat could superadd to those of frost and winter. To 
this sequel of their story w'e shall immediately revert, 
after first noticing a little romantic episode which occurred 
at this point between Oubacha and his unprincipled 10 
cousin Zebek-Dorchi. 

There was, at the time of the Kalmuck flight from the 
Wolga, a Russian gentleman of some rank at the court 
of the Khan, whom, for political reasons, it was thought 
necessary to carry along with them as a captive. For 15 
some weeks his confinement had been very strict, and in 
one or two instances cruel ; but, as the increasing dis- 
tance was continually diminishing the chances of escape, 
and perhaps, also, as the misery of the guards gradually 
withdrew their attention from all minor interests to their 20 
own personal sufferings, the vigilance of the custody 
grew more and more relaxed ; until at length, upon a 
petition to the Khan, Mr. Weseloff was formally restored 
to liberty ; and it was understood that he might use his 
liberty in wliatever way he chose; even for returning 25 
to Russia, if that should be his w'ish. Accordingly, he 
was making active preparations for his journey to St. 
Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that not 
improbably, in some of the battles which were then antici- 
pated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to 30 
lose some prisoner of rank, — in which case the Russian 

E 



50 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating 
an exchange. Upon this plea, to his own severe afflic- 
tion, the Russian was detained luitil the farther pleasure 
of the Khan. The Khan's name, indeed, was used 
5 through the whole affair, but, as it seemed, with so little 
concurrence on his part, that, when Weseloff in a private 
audience humbly remonstrated upon the injustice done 
him and the cruelty of thus sporting with his feelings by 
setting him at liberty, and, as it were, tempting him into 

lo dreams of home and restored happiness only for the pur- 
pose of blighting them, the good-natured prince dis- 
claimed all participation in the affliir, and went so far in 
proving his sincerity as even to give him permission to 
effect his escape ; and, as a ready means of commenc- 

15 ing it without raising suspicion, the Khan mentioned to 
Mr. Weseloff that he had just then received a message 
from the Hetman of the Bashkirs, soliciting a private 
interview on the banks of the Torgau at a spot pointed 
out. That interview was arranged for the coming night ; 

20 and Mr. Weseloff might go in the Khan's suite, which on 
either side was not to exceed three persons. Weseloff 
was a prudent man, acquainted with the world, and he 
read treachery in the very outline of this scheme, as 
stated by the Khan — treachery against the Khan's per- 

25 son. He mused a little, and then communicated so 
much of his suspicions to the Khan as might put him on 
his guard ; but, upon further consideration, he begged 
leave to decline the honor of accompanying the Khan. 
The fact was that three Kalmucks, who had strong 

30 motives for returning to their countrymen on the west 
bank of the Wolga, guessing the intentions of Weseloff, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 51 

had offered to join him in his escape. These men the 
Khan would probably find himself obliged to countenance 
in their project, so that it became a point of honor with 
Weseloff to conceal their intentions, and therefore to 
accomplish the evasion from the camp (of which the 5 
first steps only would be hazardous) without risking the 
notice of the Khan. 

The district in which they were now encamped 
abounded through many hundred miles with wild horses 
of a docile and beautiful breed. Each of the four fugi- 10 
tives had caught from seven to ten of these spirited 
creatures in the course of the last few days. This 
raised no suspicion, for the rest of the Kalmucks had 
been making the same sort of provision against the com- 
ing toils of their remaining route to China. These horses 15 
were secured by halters, and hidden about dusk in the 
thickets which lined the margin of the river. To these 
thickets, about ten at night, the four fugitives repaired. 
They took a circuitous path, which drew them as little as 
possible within danger of challenge from any of the out- 20 
posts or of the patrols which had been established on the 
quarters where the Bashkirs lay ; and in three-quarters of 
an hour they reached the rendezvous. The moon had 
now risen, the horses were unfastened ; and they were 
in the act of mounting, when the deep silence of the 25 
woods was disturbed by a violent uproar and the clash- 
ing of arms. Weseloff fancied that he heard the voice of 
the Khan shouting for assistance. He remembered the 
communication made by that prince in the morning ; and, 
requesting his companions to support him, he rode off in 30 
the direction of the sound. A very short distance brouglit 



52 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

him to an open glade in the wood, where he beheld four 
men contending with a party of at least nine or ten. 
Two of the four were dismounted at the very instant of 
Weseloff's arrival. One of these he recognized almost 

5 certainly as the Khan, who was fighting hand to hand, 
but at great disadvantage, with two of the adverse horse- 
men. Seeing that no time was to be lost, Weseloff fired 
and brought down one of the two. His companions dis- 
charged their carabines at the same moment ; and then 

loall rushed simultaneously into the little open area. The 
thundering sound of about thirty horses, all rushing at 
once into a narrow space, gave the impression that a 
whole troop of cavalry was coming down upon the assail- 
ants ; who accordingly wheeled about and fled with one 

IS impulse. Weseloff advanced to the dismounted cavalier, 
who, as he expected, proved to be the Khan. The man 
whom Weseloff had shot was lying dead ; and both were 
shocked, though Weseloff at least was not surprised, on 
stooping down and scrutinizing his features, to recognize 

20 a well-known confidential servant of Zebek-Dorchi. 
Nothing was said by either party. The Khan rode off, 
escorted by Weseloff and his companions ; and for some 
time a dead silence })revailed. The situation of Weseloff 
was delicate and critical. To leave the Khan at this point 

25 was probably to cancel their recent services ; for he might 
be again crossed on hie path, and again attacked, by the very 
party from whom he had just been delivered. Yet, on the 
other hand, to return to the camp was to endanger the 
chances of accomplishing the escape. The Khan, also, was 

30 apparently revolving all this in his mind ; for at length he 
broke silence and said, " I comprehend your situation ; and, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 53 

under other circumstances, I might feel it my duty to de- 
tain your companions, but it would ill become me to do 
so after the important service you have just rendered me. 
Let us turn a little to the left. There, where you see the 
watchfire, is an outpost. Attend me so far. I am then 5 
safe. You may turn and pursue your enterprise ; for 
the circumstances under which you will appear as my 
escort are sufficient to shield you from all suspicion for 
the present. I regret having no better means at my dis- 
posal for testifying my gratitude. But tell me before we 10 
part — was it accident only which led you to my rescue? 
Or had you acquired any knowledge of the plot by which 
I was decoyed into this snare?" Weseloff answered very 
candidly that mere accident had brought him to the spot 
at which he heard the uproar ; but that, having heard it, 15 
and connecting it with the Khan's communication of the 
morning, he had then designedly gone after the sound in 
a way which he certainly should not have done, at so 
critical a moment, unless in the expectation of finding 
the Khan assaulted by assassins. A few minutes after 20 
they reached the outpost at which it became safe to 
leave the Tartar chieftain ; and immediately the four 
fugitives commenced a flight which is, perhaps, without a 
parallel in the annals of travelling. Each of them led 
six or seven horses besides the one he rode ; and l)y 25 
shifting from one to the other (like the ancient Desultors 
of the Roman circus), so as never to burden the same 
horse for more than half an hour at a time, they con- 
tinued to advance at the rate of 200 miles in the twenty- 
four hours for three days consecutively. After that time, 30 
considering themselves beyond pursuit, they proceeded 



54 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

less rapidly ; though still with a velocity which staggered 
the belief of Weseloff s friends in after years. He was, 
however, a man of high principle, and always adhered 
firmly to the details of his printed report. One of the 
S circumstances there stated is that they continued to pur- 
sue the route by which the Kalmucks had fled, never for 
an instant finding any difficulty in tracing it by the skele- 
tons and other memorials of their calamities. In par- 
ticular, he mentions vast heaps of money as part of the 

lo valuable property which it had been necessary to sacri- 
fice. These heaps were found lying still untouched in 
the deserts. From these Weseloff and his companions 
took as much as they could conveniently carry ; and this 
it was, with the price of their beautiful horses, which they 

15 afterward sold at one of the Russian military settlements 
for about ^15 apiece, which eventually enabled them to 
pursue their journey in Russia. This journey, as regarded 
Weseloff in particular, was closed by a tragical catas- 
trophe. He was at that time young and the only child 

20 of a doting mother. Her affliction under the violent ab- 
duction of her son had been excessive, and probably had 
undermined her constitution. Still she had supported it. 
Weseloff, giving way to the natural impulses of his filial 
affection, had imprudently posted through Russia to his 

25 mother's house without warning of his approach. He 
rushed precipitately into her presence ; and she, who had 
stood the shocks of sorrow, wns found unequal to the shock 
of joy too sudden and too acute. She died upon the spot. 



We now revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck 
30 flight. These it would be useless to i)ursue circumstan- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 55 

tially through the whole two thousand miles of suffering 
which remained ; for the character of that suffering was 
even more monotonous than on the former half of the 
flight, but also more severe. Its main elements were' 
excessive heat, with the accompaniments of famine and 5 
thirst, but aggravated at every step by the murderous 
attacks of their cruel enemies, the Bashkirs and the 
Kirghises. 

These people, " more fell than anguish, hunger, or the 
sea," stuck to the unhappy Kalmucks like a swarm of 10 
enraged hornets. And very often, while they were at- 
tacking them in the rear, their advanced parties and 
flanks were attacked with almost equal fury by the people 
of the country which they were traversing ; and with good 
reason, since the law of self-preservation had now obliged 15 
the fugitive Tartars to plunder provisions and to forage 
wherever they passed. In this respect their condition 
was a constant oscillation of wretchedness ; for some- 
times, pressed by grinding famine, they took a circuit of 
perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land 20 
rich in the comforts of life ; but in such a land they were 
sure to find a crowded population, of which every arm 
was raised in unrelenting hostility, with all the advantages 
of local knowledge, and with constant preoccupation of 
all the defensible positions, mountain passes, or bridges. 25 
Sometimes, again, wearied out with this mode of suffer- 
ing, they took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in 
order to strike into a land with few or no inhabitants. 
But in such a land they were sure to meet absolute 
starvation. Then, again, whether with or without this 3° 
plague of starvation, whether with or without this plague 



56 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

of hostility in front, whatever might be the " fierce va- 
rieties " of their misery in this respect, no rest ever came 
to their unhappy rear ; post equitem sedet atra cum : it 
was a torment like the undying worm of conscience. 
S And, upon the whole, it presented a spectacle altogether 
unprecedented in the history of mankind. Private and 
personal malignity is not unfretpiently immortal ; but rare 
indeed is it to find the same pertinacity of malice in 
a nation. And what imbittered the interest was that the 

lo malice was reciprocal. Thus far the parties met upon 
equal terms ; but that equality only sharpened the sense 
of their dire inequality as to other circumstances. The 
Bashkirs were ready to fight " from morn till dewy eve." 
The Kalmucks, on the contrary, were always obliged to 

15 run. Was it/roiit their enemies as creatures whom they 
feared ? No ; but toivards their friends — towards that 
final haven of China- — as what was hourly implored by 
the prayers of their wives and the tears of their children. 
But, though they fi^d unwillingly, too often they fled in 

20 vain — being unwillingly recalled. There lay the tor- 
ment. Eivery day the Bashkirs fell upon them ; every 
day the same unprofitable battle was renewed ; as a mat- 
ter of course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their ad- 
vanced guard to fight them ; every day the battle raged 

25 for hours, and uniformly with the same result. For, no 
sooner did the Bashkirs find themselves too heavily 
pressed, and that the Kalmuck march had been retarded 
by some hours, than they retired into the boundless 
deserts, where all pursuit was hopeless. 15ut if the Kal- 

30 mucks resolved to press forwards, regardless of their ene- 
mies — in that case their attacks became so fierce and 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 57 

overwhelming that the general safety seemed likely to be 
brought into question ; nor could any effectual remedy 
be applied to the case, even for each separate day, ex- 
cept by a most embarrassing halt and by countermarches 
that, to men in their circumstances, were almost worse 5 
than death. It will not be surprising that the irritation 
of such a systematic persecution, superadded to a previ- 
ous and hereditary hatred, and accompanied by the 
stinging consciousness of utter impotence as regarded all 
effectual vengeance, should gradually have inflamed the 10 
Kalmuck animosity into the wihiest expression of down- 
right madness and frenzy. Indeed, long before the 
frontiers of China were approached, the hostihty of both 
sides had assumed the appearance much more of a 
warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst creatures ac- 15 
knowledging the restraints of reason or the claims of a 
common nature. The spectacle became too atrocious ; 
it was that of a host of lunatics pursued by a host of 
fiends. 

On a fine morning in early autumn of the year 1771,20 
Kien Long, the Emperor of China, was pursuing his 
amusements in a wild frontier district lying on the out- 
side of the Great Wall. For many hundred square 
leagues the country was desolate of inhabitants, but 
rich in woods of ancient growth, and overrun with 25 
game of every description. In a central spot of this 
solitary region the Emperor had built a gorgeous hunt- 
ing lodge, to which he resorted annually for recreation 
and relief from the cares of government. Led onwards 
in pursuit of game, he had rambled to a distance of 20030 



58 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

miles or more from his lodge, followed at a little distance 
by a sufficient military escort, and every night pitching his 
tent in a different situation, until at length he had arrived 
on the very margin of the vast central deserts of Asia. 
5 Here he was standing, by accident, at an opening of his 
pavilion, enjoying the morning sunshine, when suddenly 
to the westward there arose a vast, cloudy vapor, which 
by degrees expanded, mounted, and seemed to be slowly 
diffusing itself over the whole face of the heavens. By 

lo and by this vast sheet of mist began to thicken toward 
the horizon and to roll forward in billowy volumes. The 
Emperor's suite assembled from all quarters ; the silver 
trumpets were sounded in the rear ; and from all the 
glades and forest avenues began to trot forwards towards 

15 the pavilion the yagers — half cavalry, half huntsmen — 
who composed the imperial escort. Conjecture was on 
the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon ; and 
the interest continually increased in proportion as simple 
curiosity gradually deepened into the anxiety of uncertain 

20 danger. At first it had been imagined that some vast 
troops of deer or other wild animals of the chase had 
been disturbed in their forest haunts by the Emperor's 
movements, or possibly by wild beasts prowling for prey, 
and might be fetching a compass by way of re-entering 

25 the forest grounds at some remoter points, secure from 
molestation. But this conjecture was dissipated by the 
slow increase of the cloud and the steadiness of its 
motion. In the course of two hours the vast phenome- 
non had advanced to a point which was judged to be 

30 within five miles of the spectators, though all calcula- 
tions of distance were difficult, and often fallacious, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 59 

when .ipplied to the endless expanses of the Tartar 
deserts. Through the ne.xt hour, during which the 
gentle morning breeze had a little freshened, the dusty 
vapor had developed itself far and wide into the appear- 
ance of huge aerial draperies, hanging in mighty volumes 5 
from the sky to the earth'; and at. particular points, where 
the eddies of the breeze acted upon the pendulous skirts 
of these aerial curtains, rents were perceived, sometimes 
taking the form of regular arches, portals, and windows, 
through which began dimly to gleam the heads of camels 10 
"indorsed" with human beings, and at intervals the mov- 
ing of men and horses in tumultuous array, and then 
through other openings, or vistas, at far-distant points, 
the flashing of polished arms. But sometimes, as the 
wind slackened or died away, all those openings, of what- 15 
ever form, in the cloudy pall, would slowly close, and for 
a time- the whole pageant was shut up from view ; although 
the growing din, the clamors, the shrieks and groans as- 
cending from infuriated myriads, reported, in a language 
not to be misunderstood, what was going on behind the 20 
cloudy screen. 

It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last ex- 
tremities of their exhaustion, and very fast approaching 
to that final stage of privation and killing misery beyond 
which few or none could have lived, but also,, happily for 25 
themselves, fast approaching (in a literal sense) that final 
stage of their long pilgrimage at which they would meet 
hospitality on a scale of royal magnificence and full pro- 
tection from their enemies. These enemies, however, as 
yet, still were hanging on their rear as fiercely as ever, 30 
though this day was destined to be the last of their 



6o REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

hideous persecution. The Khan had, in fact, sfut for- 
ward couriers with all the requisite statements and peti- 
tions, addressed to the Emperor of China. These had 
been duly received, and preparations made in conse- 
5 quence to welcome the Kalmucks with the most paternal 
benevolence. But as these couriers had been dispatched 
from the Torgau at the moment of arrival thither, and 
before the advance of Traubenberg had made it neces- 
sary for the Khan to order a hasty renewal of the flight, 

lo the Emjjcror had not lo(jked for tlieir arrival on his 
frontiers until full three months after the present time. 
The Khan had, indeed, expressly notified his intention to 
pass the summer heats on the banks of the Torgau, and 
to recommence his retreat about the beginning of Sep- 

15 tember. The subsequent change of plan being unknown 
to Kien Long, left him for some time in douljt as to the 
true interpretation to be put upon this mighty apparition 
in the desert ; but at length the savage clamors of hostile 
fury and clangor of weapons unveiled to the Emperor the 

20 true nature of those unexpected calamities which had so 
prematurely precipitated the Kalmuck measure. 

Apprehending the real state of affairs, the Emperor 
instantly perceived that the first act of his fatherly care 
for these erring children (as he esteemed them), now re- 

25 turning to their ancient obedience, must be - to deliver 
them from their pursuers. And this was less difficult 
than miglit have been supposed. Not many miles in the 
rear was a body of well-appointed cavalry, with a strong 
detachment of artillery, who always attended the Empe- 

30 ror's motions. These were hastily summoned. Mean- 
time it occurred to the train of courtiers that some 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 6i 

danger might arise to the Emperor's person from the 
proximity of a lawless enemy, and accordingly he was in- 
duced to retire a Httle to the rear. It soon appeared, 
however, to those who watched the vapory shroud in the 
desert, that its motion was not such as would argue the 5 
direction of the march to be exactly upon the pavilion, 
but rather in a diagonal hne, making an angle of full 45 
degrees with that line in which the imperial cortege had 
been standing, and therefore \/\\\\ a distance continually 
increasing. Those who knew the country judged that 10 
the Kalmucks were making for a large fresh-water lake 
about seven or eight miles distant. They were right ; 
and to that point the imperial cavalry was ordered up ; 
and it was precisely in that spot, and about three hours 
after, and at noonday, on the 8th of September, that the 15 
great Exodus of the Kalmuck Tartars was brought to a 
final close, and with a scene of such memorable and 
hellish fury as formed an appropriate winding up to an 
expedition in all its parts and details so awfully dis- 
astrous. The Emperor was not personally present, or at 20 
least he saw whatever he did ?,qq from too great a distance 
to discriminate its individual features ; but he records in 
his written memorial the report made to him of this scene 
by some of his own officers. 

The Lake of Tengis, near the frightful Desert of Kobi, 25 
lay in a hollow amongst hills of a moderate height, rang- 
ing generally from two to three thousand feet high. 
'About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the Chinese 
cavalry reached the summit of a road which led through 
a cradle-like dip in the mountains right down upon the 30 
margin of the lake. From this pass, elevated about two 



62 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

thousand feet above the level of the water, they continued 
to descend, by a very winding and difficult road, for an 
hour and a half; and during the whole of this descent 
they were compelled to be inactive spectators of the 
5 fiendish spectacle below. The Kalmucks, reduced by 
this time from about six hundred tliousand souls to two 
hundred and sixty thousand, and after enduring for two 
months and a half the miseries we have previously de- 
scribed — outrageous heat, flimine, and the destroving 

loscimiter of the Kirghises and the Bashkirs — had for tlie 
last ten days been traversing a hideous desert, where no 
vestiges were seen of vegetation and no drop of water 
could be found. Camels and men were already so over- 
laden that it was a mere impossibility that they should 

15 carry a tolerable sufficiency for the passage of this fright- 
ful wilderness. On the eighth day, the wretched daily 
allowance, which had been continually diminishing, failed 
entirely ; and thus, for two days of insupportable fatigue, 
the horrors of thirst had been carried to the fiercest ex- 

2otremity. Upon this last morning, at the sight of the 
hills and the forest scenery, which announced to those 
who acted as guides the neighborhood of the Lake of 
Tengis, all the people rushed along with maddening 
eagerness to the anticipated solace. 'J'he day grew 

25 hotter and hotter, the people more and more exhausted ; 
and gradually, in the general rush forward to the lake, all 
discipline and command were lost — all attempts to pre- 
serve a rear guard were neglected — the wild Bashkirs 
rode oil amongst the encumbered people and slaughtered 
30 theui by wholesale, and almost without resistance. 
Screams and tumultuous shouts proclaimed the progress 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 63 

of the massacre ; but none heeded — none halted ; all 
alike, pauper or noble, continued to rush on with mania- 
cal haste to the waters — all with faces blackened by the 
heat preying upon the liver and with tongue drooping 
from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir was affected by the 5 
same misery, and manifested the same symptoms of his 
misery, as the wretched Kalmuck ; the murderer was 
oftentimes in the same frantic misery as his murdered 
victim — many, indeed (an ordinary effect of thirst), in 
both nations, had become lunatic, and in this state, 10 
whilst mere multitude and condensation of bodies alone 
opposed any check to the destroying scimiter and the 
trampling hoof, the lake was reached ; and to that the 
whole vast body of enemies rushed, and together contin- 
ued to rush, forgetful of all things at that moment but of 15 
one almighty instinct. This absorption of the thoughts 
in one maddening appetite lasted for a single half hour ; 
but in the next arose the final scene of parting vengeance. 
Far and wide the waters of the solitary lake were instantly 
dyed red with blood and gore : here rode a party of sav- 20 
age Bashkirs, hewing off heads as fast as the swaths fall be- 
fore the mower's scythe ; there stood unarmed Kalmucks 
in a death grapple with their detested foes, both up to 
the middle in water, and oftentimes both sinking together 
below the surface, from weakness or from struggles, and 25 
perishing in each other's arms. Did the Bashkirs at 
any point collect into a cluster for the sake of giving im- 
petus to the assault? Thither were the camels driven in 
fiercely by those who rode them, generally women or 
boys; and even these quiet creatures were forced into a 3° 
share in this carnival of murder by trampling down as 



64 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

many as they could strike prostrate with the lash of their 
fore-legs. Every moment the water grew more polluted ; 
and yet every moment fresh myriads came up to the lake 
and rushed in, not able to resist their frantic thirst, and 
5 swallowing large draughts of water, visibly contaminated 
with the blood of their slaughtered compatriots. Where- 
soever the lake was shallow enough to allow of men rais- 
ing their heads above the water, there, for scores of 
acres, were to be seen all forms of ghastly fear, of ago- 

10 nizing struggle, of s]3asm, of death, and the fear of death 
— revenge, and the lunacy of revenge — until the neutral 
spectators, of whom there were not a few, now descend- 
ing the eastern side of the lake, at length averted their 
eyes in horror. This horror, which seemed incapable of 

15 further addition, was, however, increased by an unex- 
pected incident. The Bashkirs, beginning to perceive 
here and there the approach of the Chinese cavalry, felt 
it prudent — wheresoever they were sufificiently at leisure 
from the passions of the murderous scene — to gather 

20 into bodies. This was noticed by the governor of a 
small Chinese fort built upon an eminence above the 
lake ; and immediately he threw in a broadside, which 
spread havoc among the Bashkir tribe. As often as the 
Bashkirs collected into globes and fiiniis as their only 

25 means of meeting the long line of descending Chinese 
cavalry, so often did the Chinese governor of the fort 
pour in his exterminating broadside ; until at length the 
lake, at its lower end, became one vast seething caldron 
of human bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese cavalry 

30 had reached the foot of the hills ; the Bashkirs, attentive 
to f/ieir movements, had formed ; skirmishes had been 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 65 

fought : and, with a quick sense that the contest was 
hencetbrwards rapidly becoming hopeless, the Bashkirs 
and Kirghises began to retire. The pursuit was not as 
vigorous as the Kalmuck hatred would have desired. 
But, at the same time, the very gloomiest hatred could S 
not but find, in their own dreadful experience of the 
Asiatic deserts, and in the certainty that these wretched 
Bashkirs had to repeat that same experience a second 
time, for thousands of miles, as the price exacted by a 
retributary Providence for their vindictive cruelty — not 10 
the very gloomiest of the Kalmucks, or the least reflect- 
ing, but found in all this a retaliatory chastisement more 
complete and absolute than any which their swords and 
lances could have obtained or human vengeance could 
have devised. 15 

Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wanderings in the 
Desert ; for any subsequent marches which av/aited them 
were neither long nor painful. Every possible alleviation 
and refreshment for their exhausted bodies had been 
already provided by Kien Long with the most princely 20 
munificence ; and lands of great fertility were immedi- 
ately assigned to them in ample extent along the River 
Ily, not very far from the point at which they had first 
emerged from the wilderness of Kobi. But the benefi- 
cent attention of the Chinese Emperor may be best 25 
stated in his own words, as translated into French by one 
of the Jesuit missionaries : — "La nation des Torgotes 
{savoir les Kalmiu/i/es) arriva a Ily, toute delabree, 
n'ayant ni de quoi vivre, ni de quoi se vetir. Je I'avais 
pr^vu ; et j'avais ordonn(§ de faire en tout genre les pro- 3° 

F 



66 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

visions necessaires pour pouvoir les secourir prompte- 
ment : c'est ce qui a et^ execute. On a fait la division 
des terres : et on a assigne a chaque famille une portion 
suffisante pour pouvoir servir a son entretien, soit en la 

S cultivant, soit en y nourissant des bestiaux. On a donne 
a chaque particulier des etoffes pour I'habiller, des grains 
pour se nourrir pendant I'espace d'une annee, des usten- 
siles pour le menage et d'autres choses necessaires : et 
outre cela plusieurs onces d'argent, pour se pourvoir de 

lo ce qu'on aurait pu oublier. On a designe des lieux par- 
ticuliers, fertiles en paturages ; et on leur a donn^ des 
bceufs, moutons, etc., pour qu'ils pussent dans la suite 
travailler par eux-memes a leur entretien et a leur 
bien-etre." 

IS These are the words of the Emperor himself, speaking 
in his own person of his own paternal cares ; but another 
Chinese, treating the same subject, records the munifi- 
cence of this prince in terms which proclaim still more 
forcibly the disinterested generosity which prompted, and 

20 the delicate considerateness which conducted, this exten- 
sive bounty. He has been speaking of the Kalmucks, 
and he goes on thus: — " Lorsqu'ils arriverent sur nos 
frontieres (au nombre de plusieurs centaines de mille, 
quoique la fatigue extreme, la faim, la soif, et toutes les 

25 autres incommodit^s inseparables d'une tres-Iongue et 
tres-penible route en eussent fait p^rir presque au- 
tant), ils etaient r^duits a la derniere misere; ils man- 
quaient de tout. II " (viz. I'empereur, Kien Long) " leur 
fit preparer des logemens conformes a leur manifere de 

3ovivre; il leur fit distribuer des alimens et des habits; il 
leur fit donner des boeufs, des moutons, et des ustensiles, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. (i^ 

pour les mettre en 6tat de former des troupeaux et de 
CLiltiver la terre, et tout cela a ses propres frais, qui se 
sont mont(§s a des sommes immenses, sans compter 
I'argent qu'il a donn6 a chaque chef-de-famille, pour 
pourvoir a la subsistance de sa femme et de ses S 
enfans." 

Thus, after their memorable year of misery, the Kal- 
mucks were replaced in territorial possessions, and in 
comfort equal, perhaps, or even superior, to that which 
they had enjoyed in Russia, and with superior political lo 
advantages. But, if equal or superior, their condition 
was no longer the same ; if not in degree, their social 
prosperity had altered in quality; for, instead of being 
a purely pastoral and vagrant people, they were now in 
circumstances which obliged them to become essentially 15 
dependent upon agriculture ; and thus far raised in social 
rank that, by the natural course of their habits and the 
necessities of life, they were effectually reclaimed from 
roving and from the savage customs connected with a 
half nomadic hfe. They gained also in political privileges, 20 
chiefly through the immunity from military service which 
their new relations enabled them to obtain. These were 
circumstances of advantage and gain. But one great dis- 
advantage there was, amply to overbalance all other pos- 
sible gain : the chances were lost, or were removed to an 25 
incalculable distance, for their conversion to Christianity, 
without which in these times there is no absolute advance 
■possible on the path of true civilization. 

One word remains to be said upon \\\q personal interests 
concerned in this great drama. The catastrophe in this 30 
respect was remarkable and complete. Oubacha, with all 



68 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

his goodness and incapacity of suspecting, had, since the 
mysterious affair on the banks of the Torgau, felt his mind 
alienated from his cousin ; he revolted from the man that 
would have murdered him ; and he had displayed his 

5 caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in the bearing 
of Zebek-Dorchi and a displeasure which all his dissimula- 
tion could not hide. This had produced a feud, which, 
by keeping them aloof, had probably saved the life of 
Oubacha ; for the friendship of Zebek-Dorchi was more 

lo fatal than his open enmity. After the settlement on the 
Ily this feud continued to advance,. until it came under 
the notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit which all 
the Tartar chieftains made to his majesty at his hunting 
lodge in 1772. The Emperor informed himself accu- 

15 rately of all the particulars connected with the transac- 
tion — of all the rights and claims put forward — and of 
the way in which they would severally affect the interests 
of the Kalmuck people. The consequence was that he 
adopted the cause of Oubacha, and repressed the pre- 

20 tensions of Zebek-Dorchi, who, on his part, so deeply 
resented this discountenance to his ambitious projects 
that, in conjunction with other chiefs, he had the pre- 
sumption even to weave nets of treason against the Empe- 
ror himself. Plots were laid, were detected, were baffled ; 

25 counter-plots were constructed upon the same basis, and 
with the benefit of the opportunities thus offered. Fi- 
nally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial lodge, 
together with all his accomplices ; and, under the skilful 
management of the Chinese nobles in the Emperor's es- 

sotablishment, the murderous artifices of these Tartar chief- 
tains were made to recoil upon themselves, and the whole 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 69 

of them perished by assassination at a great imperial ban- 
quet. For the Chinese moraUty is exactly of that kind 
which approves in everything the lex talionis : 

"... Lex nee justior ulla est [as ///;■!' think] 
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." S 

So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and originator of 
the great Tartar Exodus. Oubacha, meantime, and his 
people were gradually recovering from the effects of their 
misery, and repairing their losses. Peace and prosperity, 
under the gentle rule of a fatherly lord paramount, re- 10 
dawned upon the tribes : their household lares, after so 
harsh a translation to distant climates, found again a 
happy reinstatement in what had, in fact, been their 
primitive abodes : they found themselves settled in quiet 
sylvan scenes, rich in all the luxuries of life, and endowed 15 
with the perfect loveliness of Arcadian beauty. But from 
the hills of this favored land, and even from the level 
grounds as they approach its western border, they still 
look out upon that fearful wilderness which once beheld 
a nation in agony — the utter extirpation of nearly half a 20 
million from amongst its numbers, and for the remainder 
a storm of misery so fierce that in the end (as happened 
also at Athens during the Peloponnesian war from a dif- 
ferent form of misery) very many lost their memory ; all 
records of their past life were wiped out as with a sponge 25 
— utterly erased and cancelled: and many others lost 
their reason ; some in a gentle form of pensive melan- 
choly, some in a more restless form of feverish delirium 
and nervous agitation, and others in the fixed forms of 
tempestuous mania, raving frenzy, or moping idiocy. 3° 



70 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Two great commemorative monuments arose in after 

years to mark the depth and permanence of the awe 

the sacred and reverential grief, with which all persons 
looked back upon the dread calamities attached to the 

5 year of the tiger — all who had either personally shared 
in those calamities and had themselves drunk from that 
cup of sorrow, or who had effectually been made witnesses 
to their results and associated with their relief: two great 
monuments; one embodied in the religious solemnity, 

10 enjoined by the Dalai Lama, called in the Tartar language 
a Romanaug — that is, a national commemoration, with 
music the most rich and solemn, of all the souls who 
departed to the rest of Paradise from the afflictions of the 
Desert (this took place about six years after the arrival 

15 in China) ; secondly, another, more durable, and more 
commensurate to the scale of the calamity and to the 
grandeur of this national Exodus, in the mighty columns 
of granite and brass erected by the Emperor, Kien Long, 
near the banks of the Ily. These columns stand upon 

20 the very margin of the steppes, and they bear a short but 
emphatic inscription to the following effect : — 

By the Will of God, 
Here, upon the Brink of these Deserts, 
Which from this Point begin and stretch away, 
25 Pathless, treeless, waterless, 

For thousands of miles, and along the margins of many mighty 

Nations, 

Rested from tlicir labors and from great afflictions, 

Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall, 

30 And by the favor of KiEN Long, God's Lieutenant upon Hirth, 

The ancient Children of the Wilderness — the Torgote Tartars — 

Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 71 

Wandering Sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial Empire 

in the year 1616, 

But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow, 

Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd. 

Hallowed be the spot forever, S 

and 
Hallowed be the day — -September 8, 1771 ! 
Amen. 



NOTES. 



The Flight of a Tartar Tribe was first jniblished in Black- 
xvood's Miigaziiie (Edinburgh), July, 1837, under the title "Revolt 
of the Tartars; or, Flight of the Kalmuck Khan and His People 
from the Russian Territories to the Frontiers of China." De 
Quincey republished it with a slight revision, in 1854, in the fourth 
volume of his collective works. 

" When we pass to the papers of historical description," says 
Professor Masson, " it is hardly a surprise to find that it is De 
Quincey's tendency in such papers to run to disputed or momentous 
'points' and concentrate the attention on tiiose. A magazine 
paper did not afford breadth of can\as enough for complete histori- 
cal representation under such titles as he generally chose. No 
exception of the kind, indeed, can be taken to his Revolt of the 
Tartars, which is a noble effort of historical painting, done with a 
sweep and breadth of poetic imagination entitling it, though a 
history, to rank also among his prose-phantasies." 

In the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1850 (v. i, p. 149), is the 
following reference to the essay : " Or have they ever read his 
chapter in Blackzvood {ox July, 1837, "^"^ '^^^ 'Retreat of a Tartar 
Tril)e'? a chapter certainly containing the most powerful historical 
painting we ever read, and recording a section of adventurous and 
romantic story not equalled, he says, ' since the retreat of the fallen 
angels.' " 

In Professor Masson's edition of De Quincey, v. 7, p. 8, is the 
following discussion of the author's original sources : 

"A word or two on De Quincey's authorities for his splendid 
sketch called The Revolt of the Tartars: — One authority was a 
famous Chinese state-paper purporting to have been composed by 
the Chinese Emperor, Kien Long, himself (1735- 1796), of. which a 

n 



74 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

I'rench translation, with the title Monument tie la TransDiigration 
des Tow'gouths des Bords de la Mer Caspienne dans V Empire de 
la Chine, had been published in 1776 by the P'rench Jesuit mission- 
aries of Pekin, in the first volume of their great collection of 
Alemoires concernant les Chinois. The account there given of so 
remarkable an event of recent Asiatic history as the migration from 
Russia to China of a whole population of Tartars had so much 
interested Gibbon that he refers to it in that chapter of his great 
work in which he describes the ancient Scythians. De Quincey 
had fastened on the same document as supplying him with an 
admirable theme for literary treatment. Explaining this some 
time ago, while editing his Revolt of the I'artars for a set of 
Selections from his Writings, I had to add that there was much in 
the paper which he could not have derived from that original, and 
that, therefore, unless he invented a great deal, he must have had 
other authorities at hand. I failed at the time to discover what 
these other authorities were, — De Quincey having had a habit of 
secretiveness in such matters; but since then an incidental refer- 
ence of his own, in his Homer and the Homeridic, has given me the 
clue. The author from whom he chiefly drew such of his materials 
as were not supplied by the French edition of Kien Long's narra- 
tive, was, it appears from that reference, the German traveller, 
Benjamin Bergmann, whose Noinadische Streifereien unter den 
Kalmilken in den Jahren 1802 und i8oj came forth from a Riga 
press, in four parts or volumes, in 1804-1805. The book consists 
of a series of letters written by Bergmann from different places 
during his residence among the Tartars, with interjected essays or 
dissertations of an independent kind on subjects relating to the 
Tartars, — one of these occupying 106 pages, and entitled Verstich 
zur Geschichte der Kalniiikenjiucht von der Wolga (" Essay on the 
Flistory of the Flight of the Kalmucks from the Volga"). A 
French translation of the Letters, with this particular Essay in- 
cluded, appeared in 1825 under the title \"oyage de Benjamin 
Berg?nann chez les Kalmiiks : Traduit de V Allemand par M. 
Moris, Membre de la Societe Asiatiqiie. Both works arc now very 
scarce; but having seen copies of both (the only copies, I think, in 



NOTES. 75 

Edinburgh, and possibly the very copies which De Quincey used), 
I have no doubt left that it was Bergmann's Essay of 1804 that 
supplied De Quincey with the facts, names, and hints he needed 
for filling up that outline-sketch of the history of the Tartar Trans- 
migration of 1 771 which was already accessible for him in the 
Narrative of the Chinese Emperor, Kien Long, and in other 
Chinese State Papers, as these had heen published in translation, 
in 1776, by the French Jesuit missionaries. At the same time, no 
doubt is left that he passed the composite material freely and 
boldly through his own imagination, on the principle that here 
was a theme of such unusual literary capabilities that it was a pity 
it should be left in the pages of ordinary historiographic summary 
or record, inasmuch as it would be most effectively treated, even 
for the purposes of real history, if thrown into the form of an epic 
or romance. Accordingly he takes liberties with his authorities, 
deviating from them now and then, and even once or twice intro- 
ducing incidents not reconcilable with either of them, if not irrec- 
oncilable also with historical and geographical possibility. Hence 
one may doubt sometimes whether what one is reading is to be 
regarded as history or as invention. On this point I can but repeat 
words I have already used : as it is, we are bound to be thankful. 
In quest of a literary theme, De Quincey was arrested somehow by 
that extraordinary transmigration of a Kalmuck horde across the 
face of Asia in 1771, which had also struck Gibbon; he inserted 
his hands into the vague chaos of Asiatic inconceivability enshroud- 
ing the transaction; and he tore out the connected and tolerably 
conceivable story which we now read. There is no such vivid 
version of any such historical episode in all Gibbon, and possibly 
nothing truer essentially, after all, to the substance of the facts as 
they actually happened." 

In the three introductory paragraphs the author arouses the 
interest of the reader by exalting his subject to a high dramatic 
plane, by appealing to the mind through images of the vast, the 
powerful, and the mysterious, and by comparing this movement 
with other great catastrophes of history. Trace out these and other 
characteristics in detail. 



76 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Page I, line 5. A principal Tartar nation. More properly 
Mongolian. See Century Cyclopedia of A'anws, under " Moguls" 
and "Tartars." 

P. I, 1. 5. steppes of Asia. What are steppes? Look up 
in an atlas all the geographical references. 

P. I, 11. 6, 7. terminus a quo, terminus ad quern. Find 
equivalents for these Latinisms in idiomatic English. De Quincey 
was fond of classical quotations and allusions. 

P. I, 11. 8, 9. Notice the nice balance of phrase and the 
avoidance of the names Russia and China. The sentence like the 
whole opening is an example of the heightened significance De 
Quincey often secures by quasi-abstract statement of fact. 

P. I, 1. 18. and the leeming. Not found in the original essay 
but added in the reprint of 1S54, after the word "swallow." 

P. 2, 1. I. Miltonic images. Paradise Lost, i. 40-50; 169- 
178; ii. 77, 165, 990-998; vi. 824-877. Find other examples of 
the influence of Milton. 

P. 2, 1. 20. " Venice Preserved ; or, A Plot Discovered.'" 
A powerful tragedy by Thomas Otway, written and acted in 1682, 
soon after the terror of the alleged Popish Plot. It was founded on 
Saint-Real's historical novel Conjuration des Espagnoh contra la 
Venise en 161S. Hallam said that, next to Shakespeare's, it was 
the most popular tragedy seen on the stage. He was affected by 
it almost to agony. The play may be found in the Mermaid .Series. 

P. 2, 1. 20. "Fiesco." A tragedy written in 1783 by Fried- 
rich Schiller, the great German poet. The scene is laid at Genoa 
under the brutal tyranny of Gianettino Doria, and the plot is a 
romantic one of love, intrigue, and conspiracy. The author was, 
at the time of writing it, influenced by the stirring events of the 
American and French revolutions. See Scherer's History of Ger- 
man Literature. 

P. 2, 1. 25. Cambyses the Third (529-522 b.c), son of Cyrus 
the Great, king of Persia, and leader of an unfortunate expedition 
against Ammon and Ethiopia. While devastating Egypt, he was 
recalled to Persia by a conspiracy, but died on the way from a self- 
inflicted wound. 



NOTES. ^^^ 

p. 2, 1. 26. anabasis, a maich up into the interior. Xeno- 
phon's Anabasis is an account of the expedition of Cyrus the 
Younger against Artaxerxes II., cuhiiinating with the death of Cyrus 
at the battle of Cunaxa, 401 n.C, and the Katabasis, or retreat to 
the Black Sea of the ten thousand Greeks. 

P. 2, 11. 28, 29. Crassus, a Roman general and statesman, 
defeated by the Parthians at Carrhffi in 53 B.C. Julian, the Apos- 
tate, a Roman emperor, who was mortally wounded by a javelin 
during his expedition against Persia in 363 A.n. See Liddell's 
History of Rome and The Sindenfs Gibbon for interesting accounts 
of these respective wars. 

P. 2, 1. 31. Napoleon. Read an account, in some good Life of 
Napoleon or History of France, of the French invasion of Russia 
in 1812. The retreat in winter of the "Grand Army" is unsur- 
passed in all history for its accumulation of horrors. 

P. 3, 1. ig. the Wolga, the Volga, the chief river in Russia 
and longest in Europe. Trace it on the map. Can you find the 
other places mentioned in this paragraph? 

P. 3, 11. 17-29. Notice in this paragraph De Quincey's skilful 
summary of the whole story. 

P. 4, 1. 5. Prince Oubacha. A good example of De Quincey's 
genius for analysis of character. 

P. 4, 1. 6. Kalmucks. A branch of the Mongolian family of 
peoples, divided into four tribes, and dwelling in the Chinese empire, 
western Siberia, and southeastern Russia. They were nomads, 
adherents of a form of Buddhism, and number over 200,000. 

— Century Cyclopedia of Names. 

P. 4, 1. g. Vice-Khan. Khan is a Persian and Tartar title 
for king, chief, or governor. 

P. 6, 11. ig, 20. Machiavelian dissimulation. Niccolo Machi- 
avelli (1469-1527), a famous Italian author and statesman, was 
secretary of the Florentine Republic, and engaged in many diplo- 
matic missions. His name is a synonym for duplicity and perfidy, 
but in reality he was not half so bad as he is painted. 

P. 6, 1. 29. Elizabeth Petrowna (1709-1762), daughter of 
Peter the Great and Catharine I., and Empress of Russia 1741-1762. 



78 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

P. 8, 1. 12. roubles. A rouble is equal to about seventy-rtve 
cents. 

P. lo, 1. 4. behemoth, the great beast, a Hebrew word mean- 
ing probably the hippopotamus. See Job xl. 15-24. 

P. 10, 1. 4. Muscovy. A name often given formerly to Russia. 
" Why look you pale? Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy." 
Shakespeare's Love's Labor Lost, v. 2, 393. 

P. 10, 1. 6. "lion ramp," lion's leap, Milton's .Sawjo^ .^fo-owz'.r- 
tes, 1. 139. Cf. Shakespeare's Cy?>ibeline, i. 6, 134: 

" Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps." 

Cf. also the heraldic term " rampant." 

P. 10, 1. 7. "baptized and infidel.'' See ^IWion's Paradise 
Lost, i. 582. 

P. 10, 1. 9. "barbaric East." Cf. Spenser's Faerie Queene, 
iii. 4, 23, Paradise Lost, ii. 3, 4, and Vergil's Aeneid, ii. 504. 

P. II, 1. 4. translation. Note the use of the word with its 
original meaning. Milton often does this. Cf. also the Authorized 
Version of the Bible. 

P. II, 1. 21. Kien Long, Emperor of China from 1735 to 1796, 
was the fourth Chinese Emperor of the Mantchoo-Tartar dynasty, 
and a man of the highest reputation for ability and accomplishment. 

— Masson. 

P. II, 1. 25. the great Chinese Wall was built in the third 
century B.C., as a defence against the northern Mongols. It is 1400 
miles in length and from fifteen to thirty feet in height. 

P. 12, 11. i5, 17. the great Lama. A priest of a form of 
Buddhism called Eamaism. The word means in the Tibetan lan- 
guage "spiritual lord." The supreme head of the Lamaist religion 
is called the Dalai-Lama, or ocean-priest, who resides at Potala, 
near Lassa, in Tibet. 

P. 14, 1. 26. the poor simple Kalmuck herdsmen, etc. 
A good example of the humanitarian note in De Quincey. All the 
great nineteenth century writers show a deep sympathy with the 
poor and lowlv. This democratic sj)irit is an important element in 
the Romantic Movement. 



NOTES. 79 

P. 15, 1. I. v/ar . . . between Russia and the Sultan. 

The war here referred to began in 1768, Mustapha III. being 
sultan of Turkey and Catharine czarina of Russia, and continued 
until 1774. 

P. 15, 1. 6. The delight in mystery is another noteworthy 
mark of the Romantic Movement. 

P. 16, 1. 10. Turkish army. Does the Turkish army at the 
present time bear this reputation? 

P. 16, 1. 13. with a loss of 5000 men. It will be difficult, 
I think, to find record, in the history of the Russo-Turkish war 
begun in 1768, of any battle answering to this. — Masson. 

P. 16, 1. 21. Paladins. Look up the history and use of this word. 

P. 17, 1. 5. ukase. A Russian proclamation, or imperial order, 
having the force of law. 

P. 17, 1. 30. Bashkirs. A tribe of mixed Finnish and Tartar 
race, subjugated in the eighteenth century, and inhabiting the 
southern provinces of Russia. 

P. 18, 1. 6. Catharine II. Elizabeth had been succeeded in 
1762 l^y her nephew Peter III., who had reigned but a few months 
when he was dethroned by a conspiracy of Russian nobles headed 
by his German wife Catharine. She became empress in his stead, 
and reigned from 1762 to 1796 as Catharine II. — Masson. One 
of jLandor's finest Iniagiitary Conversations is based on the murder 
of Peter. 

P. 22, 1. 14. Kirghises. A nomadic people of Mongolian- 
Tartar race, dwelling in Turkestan. 

P. 23, 1. 5. Sarepta. Find this town on the map ; it is situ- 
ated on the Volga. 

P. 23, 1. 17. en masse, Fr. in a body. 

P. 24, 1. 20. These things, etc. How exquisitely De Quincey 
adapts the language to the thought in this paragraph. Find other 
examples. 

P. 25, 1. 7. surveillant, Fr. overseer. 

P. 24, 1. 31. Kichinskoi. This and the following paragraph 
contain another admirable piece of character-drawing. It would 
be diffirult to find a Hner picture of vanity and bhnd self-delusion. 



8o REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

P. 31, 1. 4. For now began to unroll, etc. De Quincey in 
this paragraph adds tragic importance to his story by comparing it 
with several of the most awful catastrophes of the nations. 

P. 31, 1. 7. destroying nations. The inroads of the Huns 
into Europe extended from the third century into the fifth ; those 
of \hQ Avars from the sixth century to the eighth or ninth; the 
first great conquests of the Mongol Tartars were by Genghis-Khan, 
the founder of a Mongol empire which stretched, in the begin- 
ning of the thirteenth century, from Cliina to roland. — AIasson. 
See Gibbon's vivid narrative of the migrations of these barljaric 
hordes in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (student's 
edition). 

P. 31, 1. 14. the French retreat from Moscow. Professor 
.Sloane's Life of N'apoleon contains an intensely interesting account 
of this disastrous retreat. The emperor invaded Russia with over 
400,000 men and 1200 guns, Init when tlie Grand Army recrossed 
the Beresina on the 27th of November, 1812, it numbered scarcely 
25,000 fit for service. 

P. 31, 1. 19. vials of wrath. See Rev. xvi. i. De Quincey 
makes frequent use of biblical phraseology, which is merely the 
English of the seventeentli century. 

P. 31, 1. 24. the accompaniment of women. Singular it is, 
and not generally known, that Grecian women accompanied the 
anabasis of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent retreat of the 
Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that there were "many" women 
in the Greek army — iroWal tiaav iraipai iv rip crrpaTevfiaTi; and 
in a late stage of that tr)ing expedition it is evident that women 
were amongst the survivors. — De QuiNCiiV. 

P. 32, 1. 3. The Children of Israel. See Exod. xiv., xvi. 

P. 32, 1. 10. Earthquakes. De Quincey here refers to such 
destructive shocks as that which occurred at Sparta 464 B.C., in 
which, according to Thirlwall, 20,000 persons perished ; that which 
Gibbon speaks of during the reign of Valentinian, 365 A.D., in 
which 50,000 persons lost their lives at Alexandria alone ; that in 
the reign of Justinian, 526 A.D., in which 250,000 persons were 
crushed by falling walls; others in Jamaica, 1692 A. i>.; at Lisbon, 



NOTES. 8i 

1755 A.D., with loss of 30,000 lives; and in Venezuela, 1812 a.d., 
when Caraccas was destroyed, and 20,000 souls perished. 

P. 32, 1. 14. pestilence. An account of the terrible plague 
which visited Athens in 430 B.C. is given in Thucydides' Pelopon- 
nesian War, book ii. During the great plague in 1665, 100,000 
Londoners perished in six months. It is most realistically described 
in Defoe's semi-historical yowrwrt/ of the Plague Year. 

P. 32, 1. 16. martyrs. Is this a mere synonym for victims, 
or does it intentionally express more ? 

P. 32, 1. 22. The siege of Jerusalem. For a detailed account 
of this dreadful siege, read Flavius Josephus' Wars of the Jews, 
books v. and vi. 

P. 33, 1. 28. with a scenical propriety. The author gives 
here some phases of the subject which attracted him toward it as 
one peculiarly suitable for imaginative treatment. Examine the 
structure, movement, and sound of the magnificent sentence which 
follows. 

P. 34, 1. 18. acharnement, a very strong French word meaning 
fierce and implacable animosity. 

P. 35, 1. 6. The Cossacks. A military people, said to be of 
Tartar origin, inhabiting the steppes of Russia. They have long 
furnished the finest cavalry in the Russian army. 

P. 35, 1. 26. Bactrian camels. Bactria, in ancient geography, 
was a country in Asia nearly corresponding to the modern district 
of Balkh in Afghanistan. 

P. 36, 1. 13. evasion. What is indicated by the use of this 
word? 

P. 37, 1. I. held and styled. Point out the utiHty of emph)y- 
ing both verbs. See other examples in the Book of Comfnoti Prayer. 
What do you observe in this whole paragraph indicating the height- 
ened or impassioned style ? 

P. 38, 1. 23. " trashed." This is an expressive word used by 
Beaumont and Fletcher in their " Bonduca," etc., to describe the 
case of a person retarded or embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by 
some encumbrance, whether thing or person, too valuable to be left 
behind. — De Quincey. 



82 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

P. 38, 1. 28. summa rerum, Lat. things of the highest impor- 
tance. Cf. suintnum bonuni. 

P. 41, 1. 23. elite, Fr. the choicest part. 

P. 42, 1. 6. annihilation of the Feka-Zechorr. There was 
another ouloss equally strong with that of Feka-Zechorr, viz. that of 
Erketunn under the government of Assarcho and Machi, whom some 
obligations of treaty or other hidden motives drew into the general 
conspiracy of revolt. But fortunately the two chieftains found means 
to assure the Governor of Astrachan, on the first outbreak of the 
insurrection, tliat their real wishes were for maintaining the old 
connection with Russia. The Cossacks, therefore, to whom the 
pursuit was intrusted, had instructions to act cautiously and accoriiing 
to circumstances on coming up with them. The result was, through 
the prudent management of Assarcho, that the clan, without com- 
promising their pride or independence, made such moderate sub- 
missions as satisfied the Cossacks; and eventually both chiefs and 
people received from the Czarina the rewards and honors of exem- 
plary fidelity. — De Quincey. 

P. 44, 1. 29. adust. Looking as if burnt or scorched, with the 
obsolete meaning of sallow, gloomy. Cf. Milton : 

"I'he Libyan air adust; " 

also Scott: "A tall, thin man, of an aihist complexion." 

P. 45, 1. 8. the tears of Xerxes. When he reviewed his 
millions from a stately throne in the plains of Asia, he suddenly 
shed a torrent of tears on the recollection that the multitude of men 
he saw before his eyes, in one hundred years should be no more. 

— LEMPRlfeRE. 

P. 45, 1. 18. the scapegoat. See Leviticus xvi. 20. 

P. 50, i. 17. the Hetman. The chief. 

P. 55. 1. 9. more fell than anguish, etc. Othello, the Moor 
of I'eiiiie, act v. scene 2, 1. 363. Sai<l of the villain lago. 

P. 56, 1.3. "post equitem sedet atra cura." Behind the 
horseman sits black care. Horace's Odes, iii. 40. 

p. 56, I. 13. "from morn to dewy eve." Paradise Lost, i. 
742-743. Uf whom was this said? See also Homer's Iliad, i. 593. 



NOTES. 83 

P. 57, 1. 18. a host of friends. The play of emotion arising 
from imaginative awe of the terrible spectacle lends a poetic touch 
to this whole passage. 

P. 57, 1. 20. On a fine morning, etc. What an exquisite 
contrast between this hunting scene with its gorgeous Oriental leisure 
and the climax of horror at the bloody lake. It is as delightful as 
passing from the painful sights and sounds of a madhouse into the 
pure sweet air of an autumn morning. De Quincey shows himself 
everywhere a master of the artistic principles of parallelism, con- 
trast, and gradation. 

P. 58, 1. 15. yagers. German yrt_^if;-, a huntsman, also a military 
term. 

P. 59, 1. 2. All the circumstances are learned from a long 
state paper on the subject of this Kalmuck migration drawn up in 
the Chinese language by the Emperor himself. Parts of this paper 
have been translated by the Jesuit missionaries. The Emperor 
states the whole motives of his conduct and the chief incidents at 
great length. — De Quincey. 

P. 59, 1. II. "indorsed." See Milton's Paradise Regained, 
iii. 329 : 

"And elephants indorsed with towers." 

Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of elephants in the Persian army, 1. 24. 
Pliny mentions them bearing towers with sixty soldiers on them, 
iurriti cum sexagenis propiigtiatoribus, viii. 7. — Dunster. 

Cf. De Quincey's use of the word evasion on p. 36, 1. 13. 

P. 64, 1. 24. globes. Troops drawn up in a circle, a formation 
used by the Romans. Cf. Milton : 

" Him round 
A globe of fiery seraphim enclosed." 

P. 64, 1. 24. turms. A troop or company. Cf. Milton: 

" Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings." 

P. 65, 1. 28. " La nation des Torgotes," etc. "The nation of 
the Torgouths (/o zvi( the Kalmucks) arrived at lly wholly shattered. 



84 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

having neither victuals to live on [sic-] nor clothes to wear. I had 
foreseen this, and had given orders for making every kind of prep- 
aration necessary for their prompt relief; which was duly done. 
The distribution of lands was made; and there was assigned to each 
family a portion sufficient to serve for its support, whether by culti- 
vating it or by feeding cattle on it [.f?V]. There were given to each 
individual materials for his clothing, corn for his sustenance for the 
space of one year, utensils for household purposes, and other things 
necessary; besides some ounces of silver wherewith to provide 
himself with anything that might have been forgotten. Particular 
places were marked out for them, fertile in pasture; and cattle and 
sheep, etc., were given them, that they might be able for the future 
to work for their own support and well-being." — This is a note of 
Kien-long subjoined to his main narrative; and De Quincey, I find, 
took the above transcript of it from the French translation of 
Bergmann's book. That transcript, it is worth observing, is not 
quite exact to the original French text of the Pekin missionaries. 

— Masson, 

P. 66, 1. 22, "Lorsqu'ils arriverent," etc. "When they 
arrived on our frontiers (to the number of some hundreds of thou- 
sands, although nearly as many more had perished by the extreme 
fatigue, the hunger, the thirst, and all the other hardships insepa- 
rable from a very long and very toilsome march), they were reduced 
to the last misery, they were in want of everything. The Emperor 
supplied them with everything. He caused haljitations to be pre- 
pared for them suitable for their manner of living; he caused food 
and clothing to be distributed among them; he had cattle and 
sheep given them, and implements to put them in a condition for 
forming herds and cultivating the earth ; and all this at his own 
proper charges, which mounted to immense sums, without counting 
the money which he gave to each head of a family to proviilc for 
the subsistence of his wife and children." 

This is from a eulogistic abstract of Kien-lung's own narrative by 
one of his Chinese ministers, named Yu-min-tchoung, a translation 
of which was sent to Paris by the Jesuit missionary, P. Amiot, to- 
gether with the translation of the imperial narrative itself. The 



NOTES. 85 

transcript is again by the French translator of Bergmann, and is 
again rather inaccurate. — Masson. 

P. 69, 1. 3. lex talionis. The law of retaliation, an eye for an 
eye, etc. 

P. 69, 1. 4. Lex nee justior, etc. Ovid's Ars Amatoria, Liber 
I, 655, 656. " Neither is there any juster law than that devisers of 
murder should perish by their own act." Line 655 reads in the 
Corpus: neque eiiiin lex aequior ulla. In quoting, De Quincey 
often relied on his memory. 

P. 69, 1. II. lares. Gods of inferior power at Rome, who pre- 
sided over houses and families. 

P. 69, 1. 16. Arcadian beauty. Where was the ancient country 
of Arcadia, and how is the adjective used in literature ? 

P. 70, 1. 22. By the Will of God, etc. This inscription has 
been slightly altered in one or two phrases, and particularly in 
adapting to the Christian era the Emperor's expressions for the 
year of the original Exodus from China and the retrogressive Exodus 
from Russia. With respect to the designation adopted for the 
Russian Emperor, either it is built upon some confusion between 
him and the Byzantine Cassars, as though the former, being of the 
same religion with the latter (and occupying in part the same 
longitudes, though in different latitudes), might be considered as 
his modern successor; or else it refers simply to the (keek form of 
Christianity professed by the Russian Emperor and Church. 

— Masson. 

Professor Masson's Appended Editorial Note on the Chinese 
Accounts of the Migration (Vol. vii. pp. 422-6) : 

As has been mentioned in the Preface, these appeared, in trans- 
lated form, in 1776, in Vol. I. of the great collection of Mhnoires 
• concernant les Chinois, published at Paris by the enterprise of the 
French Jesuit missionaries at Pekin. The most important of them, 
under the title Mo7iument de la Transmigration des Tourgouths des 
Bards de la Mer Caspienne dans P Empire de la Chine, occupies 
twenty-seven pages of the volume, and purports In be a translation 
of a (Chinese document drawn up by the Emperor Kien-long him- 



86 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

self. This Emperor, described by the missionaries as " the best- 
lettered man in his Empire," had special reasons for so commemo- 
rating as one of the most interesting events of his reign the sudden 
self-transference in 1 771 of so large a Tartar liorde from the Russian 
allegiance to his own. Much of the previous part of his reign had 
been spent in that work of conquering and consolidating the 
Tartar appendages of his Empire which had been begun by his 
celebrated grandfather, the Emperor Kang-hi (1661-1721); and 
it so chanced that the particular Tartar horde which now, in 1771, 
had marched all the way from the shores of the Caspian to appeal 
to him for protection and for annexation to the Chinese Empire 
were but the posterity of a horde who had formerly belonged to 
that Empire, but had detached themselves from it, in the reign of 
Kang-hi, by a contrary march westward to annex themselves to the 
Russian dominions. The event of 1 771, therefore, was gratifying 
to Kien Long as completing his independent exertions among the 
Tartars on the fringes of China by the voluntary re-settlement 
within those fringes, and return to the Chinese allegiance, of a 
whole I'artar population which had been astray, and under untit 
and alien rule, for several generations. With this explanation the 
following sentences from Kien-long's Memoir, containing all its 
historical substance, will be fully intelligible : • — 

"All those who at present compose the nation of the Torgouths, 
unaffrighted by the dangers of a long and painful march, and full 
of the single desire of procuring themselves for the future a better 
mode of life and a more happy lot, have abandoned the parts which 
they inhabited far beyond our frontiers, have traversed with a cour- 
age proof against all difficulties a space of more than ten thousand 
lys, and are come to range themselves in the number of my subjects. 
Their submission, in my view of it, is not a submission to which they 
have been inspired by fear, but is a voluntary and free submission, 
if ever there was one. . . . The Torgouths are one of the branches 
of the Eleuths. Four different branches of people formed at one 
time the whole nation of the Tchong-kar. It would be difficult to 
explain their common origin, respecting which indeed there is no 
very certain knowledge. These four branches separated from each 



NOTES. 87 

other, so that each became a nation apart That of the Eleuths, 
the chief of them all, gradually subdued the others, and continued 
till the time of Kang-hi to exercise this usurped pre-eminence over 
them. Tse-ouang-raptan then reigned over the Eleuths, and Ayouki 
over the Torgouths. These two chiefs, being on bad terms with each 
other, had their mutual contests; of which Ayouki, who was the 
weaker, feared that in the end he would be the unhappy victim. 
He formed the project of withdrawing himself forever from the 
domination of the Eleuths. He took secret measures for securing 
the flight which he meditated, and sought safety, with all his people, 
in the territories which are under the dominion of the Russians. 
These permitted them to establish themselves in the country of 
Etchil [the country between the Volga and the Jaik, a little to the 
north of the Caspian SeaJ. . . . Oubache, the present Khan of 
the Torgouths, is the youngest grandson of Ayouki. The Russians 
never ceasing to require him to furnish soldiers for incorporation 
into their armies, and having at last carried oft his own son to serve 
them as a hostage, and being besides of a religion different from his, 
and paying no respect to that of the Lamas, which the Torgouths 
profess, Oubache and his people at last determined to shake oft a 
yoke which was becoming daily more and more insupportable. 
After having secretly deliberated among themselves, they con- 
cluded that they must abandon a residence where they had so 
much to suffer, in order to come and live more at ease in those 
parts of the dominion of China where the religion professed is that 
of Fo. At the commencement of the eleventh month of last year 
[December, 1770] they took the I'oad, with their wives, their chil- 
dren, and all their baggage, traversed the country of the Hasaks 
[Cossacks], skirted Lake Palkache-nor and the adjacent deserts; 
and, about the end of the sixth month of this year [in August, 
1 771], after having passed over more than ten thousand lys during 
the space of the eight whole months of their journey, they arrived 
at last on the frontiers of Charapen, not far from the borders of 
Ily. I knew already that the Torgouths were on the march to 
come and make submission to me. The news was brought me not 
long after their departure from Etchil. I then reflected that, as 



88 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Ileton, general of the troops that are at Ily, was already charged 
with other very important affairs, it was to be feared that he would 
not be able to regulate with all the requisite attention those which 
concerned these new refugees. Chouhede, one of the councillors of 
the general, was at Ouche, charged with keeping order among the 
Mahometans theire. As he found it within his power to give his 
attention to the Torgouths, I ordered him to repair to Ily and do 
his best for their solid settlement. ... At the same time I did 
not neglect any of the precautions that seemed to me necessary. 
I ordered Chouhede to raise small forts and redoubts at the most 
important points, and to cause all the passes to be carefully 
guarded; and I enjoined on him the duty of himself getting ready 
the necessary provisions of every kind inside these defences. . . . 
The Torgouths arrived, and on arriving found lodgings ready, means 
of sustenance, and all the conveniences they could have found in 
their own proper dwellings. This is not all. Those principal men 
among them who had to come personally to do me homage had 
their expenses paid, and were honorably conducted, by the imperial 
post-road, to the place where I then was. I saw them ; I spoke to 
them; I invited them to partake with me in the pleasures of the 
chase; and, at the end of the number of days appointed for this 
exercise, they attended me in my retinue as far as to Ge-hol. There 
I gave them a ceremonial banquet and made them the customary 
presents. ... It was at this Ge-hol, in those charming parts where 
Kang-hi, my grandfather, made himself an abode to which he could 
retire during the hot season, at the same time that he thus put him- 
self in a situation to be able to watch with greater care over the 
welfare of the peoples that are beyond the western frontiers of the 
Empire; it was, I say, in those lovely parts that, after having con- 
quered the whole country of the Eleuths, I had received the sincere 
homages of Tchering and his Tourbeths, who alone among the 
Eleuths had remained faithful to me. One has not to go many 
years back to touch the epoch of that transaction. The remem- 
brance of it is yet recent. And now — who could have predicted 
it? — when there was the least possible room for expecting such a 
thing, and when I had no thought of it, that one of the branches of 



NOTES. 89 

the Eleuths which hrst separated itself from the trunk, those Tor- 
gouths who had voluntarily expatriated themselves to go and live 
under a foreign and distant dominion, these same Torgoutlis are 
come of themselves to submit to me of their own good will; and it 
happens that it is still at Ge-hol, not far from the venerable spot 
where my grandfather's ashes repose, that I have the opportunity, 
which I never sought, of admitting them solemnly into the number 
of my subjects." 

Annexed to this general memoir there were some notes, also by 
the Emperor, one of them being that description of the sufferings 
of the Torgouths on their march, and of the miserable condition in 
which they arrived at the Chinese frontier, which De Quincey has 
quoted at p. 417 [65]. Annexed to the memoir there is also a 
letter from P. Amiot, one of the French Jesuit missionaries, dated 
" Pe-king, 15th October, 1773," containing a comment on the 
memoir of a certain Chinese scholar and mandarin, Yu-min-tchoung, 
who had been charged by the Emperor with the task of seeing the 
narrative properly preserved in four languages in a monumental 
form. It is from this Chinese comment on the Imperial Memoir 
that there is the extract at p. 418 [66] as to the miserable condi- 
tion of the fugitives. 

On a comparison of De Quincey's splendid paper with the 
Chinese documents, several discrepancies present themselves; the 
most important of which perhaps are these : — (i) In De Quincey's 
paper it is Kien-long himself who first descries the approach of the 
vast Kalmuck horde to the frontiers of his dominions. On a fine 
morning in the early autumn of 1771, we are told, being then on a 
hunting expedition in the solitary Tartar wilds on the outside of 
the great Chinese Wall, and standing by chance at an opening of 
his pavilion to enjoy the morning sunshine, he sees the huge sheet 
of mist on the horizon, which, as it rolls nearer and nearer, and its 
features become more definite, reveals camels, and horses, and 
human beings in myriads, and announces the advent of, etc. etc. ! 
In Kien-long's own narrative he is not there at all, having expected 
indeed the arrival of the Kalmuck host, but having deputed the 
military and commissariat arrangements for the reception of them 



90 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

to his trusted officer Chouliede; aiul his first sight i>f any of them 
is when their chiefs are brought to him, by the imperial post-road, 
to his quarters a good way off, where they are honorably enter- 
tained, and whence they accompany him to his summer residence 
of Ge-hol. (2) De Quincey's closing account of the monument 
in memory of the Tartar transmigration which Kien-long caused to 
be erected, and his copy of the tine inscription on the monument, 
are not in accord with the Chinese statements respecting that 
matter. " Mighty columns of granite and brass erected by the 
Emperor Kien-long near the banks of the lly " is De Quincey's 
description of the monument. The account given of the aflair by 
the mandarin Yu-min-tchoung, in his comment on the Emperor's 
Memoir, is very different. "The year of the arrival of the Tor- 
gouths," he says, " chanced to be precisely that in which the 
Emperor was celebrating the eightieth year of the age of his mother 
the Empress-Dowager. In memory of tliis happy day his Majesty 
had built on the mountain which shelters from the heat (Pi-chou- 
chan) a vast and magnificent viiao, in honor of the reunion of 
all the followers of Fo in one and the same worship; it had just 
been completed when Oubache and the other princes of his nation 
arrived at Ge-hol. In memory of an event which has contributed 
to make this same year forever famous in our annals, it has been 
his Majesty's will to erect in the same 7niao a monument which 
should fix the epoch of the event and attest its authenticity; he 
himself composed the words for the monument and wrote the 
characters with his own hand. How small the number of persons 
that will have an opportunity of seeing and reading this monument 
within the walls of the temple in which it is erected ! " Moreover 
the words of the monumental inscription in De Quincey's copy of 
it are hardly what Kien-long would have written or could have 
authorized. " Wandering sheep who have strayed away from the 
Celestial Empire in the year i6i6 " is the expression in De Quincey's 
copy for that original secession of the Torgouth Tartars from their 
eastern home on the Chinese borders for transference of themselves 
far west to Russia, which was repaired and compensated by their 
return in 1771 under their Khan Oubache. As distinctly, on the 



NOTES. 91 

other hand, the memoir of Kien-long refers the date of the original 
secession to no farther back than the reign of his own grandfather, 
the Emperor Kang-hi, when Ayouki, the grandfather of Oubache, 
was Khan of the Torgouths, and induced them to part company 
with their overbearing kinsmen the Eleuths, and seek refuge within 
the Russian territories on the Volga. In the comment of the 
Chinese mandarin on the Imperial memoir the time is more exactly 
indicated by the statement that the Torgouths had remained " more 
than seventy years " in their Russian settlements when Oubache 
brought them back. This would refer us to about 1700, or, at 
farthest, to between 1690 and 1700, for the secession under Ayouki. 
The discrepancies are partly explained by the fact that De 
Quincey followed Bergmann's account, — which account differs 
avowedly in some particulars from that of the Chinese Memoirs. 
In Bergmann I find the original secession of the ancestors of 
Oubache's Kalmuck horde from China to Russia is pushed back 
to 1616, just as in De Quincey. But, though De Quincey keeps by 
Bergmann when he pleases, he takes liberties with Bergmann too, 
intensifies Bergmann's story throughout, and adds much to it for 
which there is little or no suggestion in Bergmann. For example, 
the incident which De Quincey introduces with such terrific effect 
as the closing catastrophe of the march of the fugitive Kalmucks 
before their arrival on the Chinese frontier, — the incident of their 
thirst-maddened rush into the waters of Lake Tengis, and their 
wallow there in bloody struggle with their Bashkir pursuers, — has 
no basis in Bergmann larger than a few slight and rather matter-of- 
fact sentences. As Bergmann himself refers here and there in his 
narrative to previous books, German or Russian, for his authorities, 
it is just possible that De Quincey may have called some of these 
to his aid for any intensification or expansion of Bergmann he 
thought necessary. My impression, however, is that he did nothing 
of the sort, but deputed any necessary increment of his Bergmann 
materials to his own lively imagination. — D. M. 



American Literature. 

An Elementary Text- Book for use 
in High Schools and Colleges. 

By JULIAN HAWTHORNE aad LEONARD LEMMON. 



THE purpose has been to make this book au organic, living struc- 
ture; to have the authors treated appear to the pupils as living 
persons; to enable pupils to comprehend not only the nature of 
the mind-and genius of authors, but also what they tried to accom- 
plish and how near they came to accomplishing it. An effort is 
made to keep the pupils reminded, concurrently, of the general his- 
torical situation during the various literary periods, and how the 
literature was affected thereby; and of the political or other refer- 
ences that served to give bias and tone to literary productions. The 
book does not follow any of the hackneyed methods; it aims to 
stimulate the pupil's thought rather than tax his memnry. 

It is thought that, upon two fundamental points of its plan, it will 
fully meet the requiremenls of teachers ; it is rich in material and 
exercises for the study of literature itself; it is believed that it will be 
found a safe guide in its literary record and judgments. 

CONTENTS. Introduction : I. Colonial Literature. II. Benjamin Frank- 
lin. III. The Revolutionary Period. IV. Pioneer Period. Selections. 
V. Some Statesmen and Historians. VI. Poets of the First Half Century. 
Select!o?is and Exercises. VII. Religious and Social Reformers. Selec- 
tions and Exercises. VII. Nalhaniel Hawthorne. IX. From Hawthorne 
to Bret Harte. Selections and Exercises. X. The Innovators. XI. 
Writers of To-day : i. Tke Imaginative Group. 2. Analytic Novelists. 
3. Roniaidic Novelists. 4. Dialect Novelists. 5. Naturalists. 6. Es- 
sayists and Historiajts. 7. Humorists. 

Cloth. 350 pages. Illustrated. Introduction price, $1.12. 



D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



AN INTRODUCTION TO THE 

Study of English Fiction. 

By WILLIAM EDWARD SIMONDS, Ph.D. 

Professor of English Literature, Knox College. 

ENGLISH fiction is eminently worthy of the attention of the stu- 
dent of literature, and the history of its development is a sub- 
ject not unsuited to the methods of the class-room. The purpose 
of this volume is to provide material for a comparative study of our 
notion in its successive epochs, and for an intelligent estimate of the 
characteristics and merits of our story-tellers in the various stages of 
their art. The book is inductive in plan. A Inief historical outline 
is presented in five introductory chapters which bear the following 
titles: L Old English Story Tellers. IT. The Romance at the 
Court of Ehzabeth. III. The Rise of the Novel. IV. The Per- 
fection of the Novel. V. Tendencies of To-day. VI. Books for 
Reference and Reading. These chapters are followed by twelve 
texts illustrative of the different periods described. These selections 
are: i. Beowulf. II. King Horn. III. Arcadia. IV. Forbonius 
and Prisceria (entire). V. Doron's Wooing. VI. Shepherds' 
Wives' Song. VII. Jack Wilton. VIII. Euphuism (from " A 
Margarite of America"'). IX. Mull Flanders. X. Pamela. XI. 
Tom Jones. XII. Tristram Shandy. 

F. J. Furnival, The Shakespearian^ Loudon, England: I'm glad you've 
written on fictii n. It is the greatest power in literature now, and has been the 
.'east studied scientifically. You've done the right thing. 

R. Q. Moulton, Professor of Literature in English, University of Chicago: 
You are rendering a great service to literary education in recognizing fiction as a 
field for inductive treatment. The arrangement of the work will greatly increase 
its practical usefulness. 

C. F. Richardson, Professor of English, Dartmouth College : The book 
seems to me an honest and original piece of work, well tl\ought out, and of dis- 
tinct utility in promoting the comparative study of English fiction. 

Cloth. 240 pages. $1.00. 



D, C. HEATH & CO., Publishers 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



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